Category: Syriac

New online Syriac manuscripts, catalogues of Cairo mss

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Kristian Heal at BYU has been busy, and is doing some excellent work in making resources available.  The following announcement appeared in Hugoye and in Nascas.

I am pleased to bring to your attention some additional resources now available on our website.

1.       Manuscript catalogues

Almost 20 years ago, Professor Kent Brown from Brigham Young University coordinated an NEH funded project to microfilm and catalogue manuscripts from Cairo and Jerusalem. Our Center is working on a project to improve access to this important collection of manuscripts on microfilm. As a first step to improving access we have digitized the preliminary catalogues of the whole collection that were prepared by the late Dr. William Macomber.

The catalogues are now available for download here: http://cpart.byu.edu/?page=121&sidebar

Over the coming months we will be donating copies of the microfilms to 10 research centers in Europe and the United states in an effort to enable scholars to better work with this important collection.

2.       Syriac and Garshuni Manuscripts from St. Mark’s Convent, Jerusalem

As part of our effort to improve access to Syriac resources in particular, we have prepared PDF copies of the  manuscripts filmed at St. Mark’s Convent, Jerusalem. One of the conditions of usage is that a copy of any publications based on these manuscripts be sent to St. Mark’s convent.

The manuscripts can be freely downloaded here: http://cpart.byu.edu/?page=126&sidebar

The online manuscripts are a wonderful idea, no hesitation.

I have more hesitation about the copies of the microfilms.   Now I have found it very difficult to get copies of material from BYU, so possible alternatives must be a good thing.  But … the libraries that will hold them are bound to be places like the Bodleian, who will certainly see this merely as a chance for profit, and will charge incredible sums if they are allowed to get away with it.  I can’t get material that I need from the Bodleian now. 

I imagine that KH was unable to get clearance to simply digitise the collection and place it online.  But it is a pity that his benevolence will probably be rendered useless by the greed of European library staff.

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The Chronicle of Zuqnin (ps.Dionysius of Tell-Mahre)

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In the Vatican library there is a manuscript written in Syriac containing a world chronicle in four parts, ending in 775 AD.  The shelfmark of the volume is Vatican Syriac manuscript number 162.  The manuscript contains 173 leaves or ‘folios’ in manuscript-speak, each with two sides, the front (‘recto’) and the reverse (‘verso’).  The manuscript seems to have been written in the early 9th century, if we look at the letter-forms in use.

On folio 66v at the bottom there is a scribal note or colophon.  The leaf seems to have been lost and recopied.  It reads:

Pray for the wretched Elisha of the monastery of Zuqnin, who copied this leaf, that he might obtain mercy like the robber on the right hand (of Jesus).  Amen and amen.  1

Another British Library manuscript (Oriental ms. 5021) mentions a scribe, Elisha of Zuqnin.  A colophon dated to 903 says that he lived in Egypt as an anchorite.  Presumably he wrote the Vatican ms. while at Zuqnin, and moved to Egypt later.

The manuscript was found in Egypt at the monastery of Deir el-Suryani (Monastery of the Syrians) in the Nitrian desert in Egypt.  This  monastery acquired a very rich collection of Syriac manuscripts.  In 926-932 AD the Archimandrite Moses of Nisibis collected manuscripts from monasteries in Syria and Iraq and transported them to Egypt, forming the basis of the collection.

One of the early Syriac scholars, J. S. Assemani, brought a bunch of Syriac manuscripts to the Vatican library in 1715.   One of these was the manuscript of the chronicle.  He didn’t get the whole manuscript, tho; a century later Henry Tattam bought nearly all the remaining manuscripts at the monastery and donated them to the British Museum, in 1842.  Among the piles of parchment are some leaves missing from Vatican Syr. 162.  These are today in the British Library, bound under the shelfmark Additional Ms. 14,665, folios 1-7.

The chronicle used old parchment.  Underneath the Syriac text are Greek letters of the 7-8th century, containing excerpts from the Old Testament.  123 folios of the Vatican manuscript and all the London folios are from this old manuscript.

The text has deteriorated since the 18th century.  A copy was made by Paulin Martin in 1867, which is in the French National Library (shelfmark Syr. Ms. 284 and 285).  The copy contains errors, but is valuable since the original can no longer be read in various passages.  Chabot, the editor of the text in the CSCO edition — the only one — was forced to rely on the copy at various points.  It would be interesting to see what modern technology could do to improve this edition!

Partial publication of chronicles is the curse of Syriac studies.  This chronicle is not immune.  There were two partial editions in the 19th century.  Fortunately the CSCO text is complete, but only the first half received a Latin translation!  The second half was not translated until 1990, when R. Hespel translated it into French.

Earlier, the fourth part was also edited and translated into French by Chabot in 1895.2 This portion (from fol. 121 to the end) is of interest for Islamic history.  Parts 3 and 4 were translated into English by Amir Harrak in 1999.

Would that this was online!

1. Incerti auctoris Chronicon Pseudo-Dionysianum vulgo dictum, ed. J.-B. Chabot, CSCO 91 and 104 (S.Syr. 43 and 53), Paris 1927, 1933.  Vol. 1, p. 241, note 6.
2. Chronique de Denys de Tell-Mahre; quatrieme partie, publ. et trad. par J.-B. Chabot, Bibliotheque de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes: sciences philologiques et historiques 112), Paris, 1895.  Online here and here.
3. Amir Harrak, Chronicle of Zuqnin: A.D. 488-775. Mediaeval sources in translation 36. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1999.  A limited edition preview is in Google books here.  Harrak also collated the whole CSCO text against the manuscript and gives critical apparatus omitted by Chabot.

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Back to James of Edessa

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve gone back to my occasional task of transcribing the 7th century Chronicle of James of Edessa, to put it on the web.  This is a continuation of the Chronicle of Eusebius, and is important for early Islamic history.  It is in tabular form, which is why it isn’t already online.  Let me tell you, formatting the dratted thing in HTML is NOT amusing.

The text survives in some badly damaged leaves in the British Library (from the Nitrian desert in Egypt) plus quotations in Michael the Syrian.  The publication was frankly bad; first E.W.Brooks published a first stab at it, in Syriac and English.  But he didn’t format the English in tabular form.  Then he tried again in CSCO 5/6, in Syriac and in Latin.  This time the Latin was in tabular form, but he still couldn’t read chunks of it.  And he supplemented it, rightly or wrongly, from Michael.

Still, after a very stressful couple of weeks it is quite soothing to do!  At the moment I h ave reached the reign of Theodosius II, ca. 450;  Olympiad 307, according  to James.

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A bunch of manuscripts online from the Syrian Orthodox Monastery of St. Mark in Jerusalem

Posted on by Roger Pearse

All done by Brigham Young University, and are here.  At the moment I think there is a problem with some of the links, but this will be fixed.

Most of the books are liturgical etc, but there is a Syriac New Testament, another containing Paul’s letters, a collection of Isaac of Scete and Cyriacus of Antioch, a couple of works by Barhebraeus including the “Chronicle of the ages”, and a Garshuni version of the world history of Michael the Syrian.  Some unclassified “collections of religious works” might bear investigation.

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Revue de l’Orient Chretien online; list of Syriac-related articles and links

Posted on by Roger Pearse

There is a very useful list of links to the ROC, with details of the Syriac materials in them, here. The volumes are all at Archive.org in complete form, and the scanning was sponsored by Gorgias Press, who thereby deserve our gratitude.  I thought the list could usefully appear here also:

Revue de l’Orient Chrétien

Volume 1 (1896)

Because of an error in printing, some pages of this volume are out of order.

Volume 2 (1897)

  • Étude sur les parties inédites de la chronique ecclésiastique attribuée a Denys de Telmahré (+845). — Nau. pp. 41-68 (Syriac/French).
  • La vie de Mar Benjamin, traduite du syriaque. — R. P. V. Scheil. pp. 245-270 (French).
  • Vie du moine Rabban Youssef Bousnaya, traduite du syriaque et annotée. — Chabot p. 357-405 (French).
  • L’Histoire ecclésiastique de Jean d’Asie, Patriarche Jacobite de Constantinople (+585). — Nau pp. 455-493 (Syriac/French).

Volume 3 (1898)

Volume 4 (1899)

Volume 5 (1900)

Volume 6 (1901)

Volume 7 (1902)

Volume 8 (1903)

Volume 9 (1904)

Volume 10 (1905)

At the end of this volume there is an index of vols. 1-10.

Volume 11 (1906) (second series, tomus I)

  • Étude supplementaire sur les écrivains syriens orientaux. — Addai Scher pp. 1-33 (French).
  • Analyse de l’histoire du couvent de Sabrischo de Beith Qoqa. — Addai Scher pp. 182-197 (French).
  • Analyse de l’histoire de Rabban Bar Edta, moine nestorien du VI siécle. — Addai Scher. pp. 403-423 (French).
  • Note sur un manuscrit syriaque (commentaire des psaumes d’apres Théodore de Mopsueste) appartenant a M. Delaporte. — F. Nau. pp. 313-317 (French).

Volume 12 (1907) (second series, tomus II)

  • Analyse de l’histoire de Rabban Bar Edta, moine nestorien du VI siécle (fin). — Addai Scher. pp. 9-13 (French).
  • A propos de une édition des Oeuvres de Schenoudi: la version syriaque des prieres de Schenoudi, de Jean le Nain, de Macaire L’Égyptien et de Serapion. — F. Nau pp. 313-328 (French/Syriac).
  • Traduction de la chronique syriaque anonyme, editee par Sa Beatitude Mgr. Rahmani. — pp. 429-440 (French).

Volume 14 (1909) (second series, tomus IV)

Volume 15 (1910) (second series, tomus V)

Volume 16 (1911) (second series, tomus VI)

Volume 17 (1912) (second series, tomus VII)

Volume 18 (1913) (second series, tomus VIII)

Volume 19 (1914) (second series, tomus IX)

Volume 20 (1915-1917) (second series, tomus X)

Volume 21 (1918-1919) (third series, tomus I)

Volume 22 (1920-1921) (third series, tomus II)

Volume 23 (1920-1921) (third series, tomus III)

Volume 26 (1927-1928) (third series, tomus VI)

Volume 27 (1929-1930) (third series, tomus VII)

Volume 28 (1931-1932) (third series, tomus VIII)

Volume 29 (1933-1934) (third series, tomus IX)

Volume 30 (1935-1946) (third series, tomus X)

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Fragments of Eusebius in the Mingana collection

Posted on by Roger Pearse

PDF’s are such a blessing.  I’ve been looking at the PDF of volume 1 of the Mingana collection of Syriac manuscripts in Birmingham.  How quickly we take these for granted!  Once, just to consult such a volume, would have meant a day off work, a 60 mile journey, and being robbed blind for copies — if I was even allowed copied.  That was the situation, only five years ago.  Not now!

This will be a dull post, I fear.  Because I ordered some photos of manuscripts in the collection, but no longer remember what was so precious in them!  This post is my journey of discovery.

On p.599 of the PDF (col. 1197 of the book), there is listed the various snippets of Eusebius in various manuscripts.  In July 2008 I went through these, and ordered the following from the Mingana:

Ms. Mingana Syr. 332      Folios 1-9a          Eusebius
Ms. Mingana Syr. 480      Folios 29a-31b       Eusebius
Ms. Mingana Syr. 589      Folios 1-6a          Eusebius

Time to refresh my memory on these!

First I’m opening the Mingana catalogue in Adobe Acrobat and running an OCR on the file to create scannable text.  I only wish Adobe used some decent OCR software.  Come on chaps, talk to Abbyy!

 OK.  On p. 308 of the PDF (col. 616) we find ms. 332.  On ff.6b-7a there are quotations on the genealogy of Jesus, from Ephraim, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Philoxenus.  Wonder why I ordered as far as 9a.

 On p. 432 of the PDF (col. 863) is ms. 480.  Ff. 29a-31b consist of tables to show that there is no contradiction between the two genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke.  The first table is from Severus of Antioch; the others from Ephraim, Eusebius and Philoxenus.  Not sure why I thought this stuff was worthwhile, now.

On p. 562 of the PDF (col. 1125) is ms. 589. 

  • Ff.1b-3b = A short treatise on ecclesiastical chronology dealing with the lunar and solar months. 
  • Ff. 4a-5a : Another short treatise on chronology by Eusebius of Caesarea (called Eusebius of Palestine).
  • Fol. 5 : The months in which the year begins in the calendar of the Jews, the Arabs, the Copts, the Syrians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians and the Armenians.
  • Ff. 5b-17b: A medical treatise on the composition of the human body, by Ahud’ immeh Antipater, who mayor may not be the same man as Ahud-‘immeh of Tegrit.
  • and so on.

Fascinating stuff… or not.  This is what so manuscripts consist of, tho; pages of short, dubious-looking texts.

The upshot is that there is unlikely to be much here to impact on my Eusebius project.  Wonder what the “short treatise on chronology is”?  I might toss that over to my translator and ask.

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Eusebius “Quaestiones” Syriac fragments all now translated

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Very pleased indeed to get the last fragment of Eusebius’ Tough questions on the gospels in English.  It has been incredibly hard to find people who (a) know enough Syriac to translate this and (b) will actually do it.  This translator is my fourth attempt!  I had to pay a premium price, and it does hurt, but it was worth it.  He’s now going to look over the fragments done by others, and revise and bring it all into line.  But this is another step forward, and a very welcome one.  I shall be very glad to see the back of the Syriac fragments.

I also have some manuscript fragments, which I need to look up again and pass to him.  More later on this.  Today seems to be a day when *everyone* has written to me.

It’s just as well I’m at home this week, recovering from a vicious virus, or I wouldn’t be able to respond to it all.

Oh, and Origen, Homily 9 on Ezekiel, is now done as well.  Only five to go!

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Severus Sebokht and “Arabic” numbers

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A bunch of Syriac works on scientific subjects are preserved in a single manuscript in the BNF in Paris.  Most are by Severus Sebokht, the 6th century monk and bishop at the monastery of Kinnesrin, where Greek studies thrived.

I have a microfilm of this manuscript, and it contains a number of letters by Severus.  One of these is of wide interest; it defends Syriac science against the Greeks, and incidentally mentions (for the first time) the numbers that we today call “Arabic” numbers.  But it has never been translated; all our knowledge of it is from a small excerpt.

This is a reminder to myself; I need to get this transcribed and translated and put online!  That’s why I got the microfilm!

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Nominate Mingana manuscripts for digitisation

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Peter Robinson of the Virtual Manuscripts Room at Birmingham has responded here to a post of mine, bewailing the emphasis on Islamic manuscripts so far, with a very interesting response:

We are aware that the only way to satisfy everyone is, simply, to digitize everything. The project was by way of an experiment, to learn about the issues involved in the digitization and to satisfy ourselves that it WOULD be possible to go on and digitize the entire collection.

Now, we believe we can do that. We have developed a plan for this, and it would be very helpful to have the support of people on this list.

One way you could do this would be to go send in any mss from Mingana that you would like to see digitized using the form at http://vmr.bham.ac.uk/contact/. The more such requests we gather, the stronger our case for digitizing the whole collection.

This is a very open-minded and sensible approach, and I would encourage people to do just this. 

The catalogues are all online here.  I know that it is summer, and we all have many things to do involving strawberries, but if you can tear yourself away, mull over what texts you would like to see online.  I can think of the manuscript including Cyrus and Thomas of Edessa, without blinking, for instance; and there will be more!

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