Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 21 (2024): 139-154
Peter Tarras
LMU Munich
A new Arabic fragment of Jacob of Serugh’s homily
On Epiphany
The collection of Arabic manuscripts of St Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai, Egypt, is
the most comprehensive archive of Christian Arabic manuscripts written before the year
1000 CE. Only some of these manuscripts were created in the Sinai monastery itself during
this period. But all of them show us that from early on the monastery was an important
nod in a network with other monastic and urban centres of Christian Arabic manuscript
production. This corpus is therefore an outstanding source of the institutional and social
history of early Christian Arabic scribality.
Unfortunately, very few of the manuscripts in this corpus have survived as complete
codices. They were first worn out through use and later many manuscripts and manuscript
fragments were stored away in a Genizah-like practice when they were no longer needed –
at least that is how one could describe their safekeeping in a separate room, the discovery
of which brought to light the so-called New Finds in 1975.
1
In the 19th and early 20th
century, numerous manuscripts then fell victim to the biblioclasm of European manuscript
hunters. Today, countless fragments (and in some cases entire codices) from St Catherine’s
Monastery can be found in European and North American collections. However, as we
shall see, biblioclasm also happened within the monastery’s walls in premodern times.
Against this background, it is remarkable that a comparably large number of colophons
of these early Christian Arabic manuscripts have survived.
2
They allow us to contextualise
them historically, in some cases very precisely. We know the names and places of activity of
a whole series of scribes and can identify the manuscripts they copied with a fair degree of
certainty.
3
1
See Arianna D’Ottone Rambach, Konrad Hirschler, and Ronny Vollandt, ‚Introduction‛, in Arianna
D’Ottone Konrad Hirschler, and Ronny Vollandt (eds), The Damascus Fragments: Towards a History of the
Qubbat al-khazna Corpus of Manuscripts and Documents, Beiruter Texte und Studien, 140 (Beirut: Ergon,
2020), pp. 9-50, at pp. 13-19, esp. p. 18.
2
Miriam L. Hjälm and Peter Tarras, ‚Early Christian Arabic Colophons from the Palestinian Monasteries:
A Comparative Analysis‛, in: George A. Kiraz and Sabine Schmidtke (eds), Literary Snippets: Colophons
Across Space an Time (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2023), pp. 119-168, at p. 121, n. 9.
3
For studies of the work of single early Christian Arabic scribes, see Sidney H. Griffith, ‚Stephen of
Ramlah and the Christian Kerygma in Ninth-Century Palestine‛, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 36/1 (1985),
pp. 23–45; idem, ‚Anthony David of Baghdad, Scribe and Monk of Mar Sabas: Arabic in the Monasteries
of Palestine‚, Church History 58/1 (1989), pp. 7–19; André Binggeli, ‚Les trois David: copistes arabes de
Palestine aux 9
e
-10
e
s.‛, in: André Binggeli, Anne Boud’hors, Matthieu Cassin (eds), Manuscripta Graeca et
Orientalia: Mélanges monastiques et patristiques en l’honneur de Paul Géhin, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 243
(Leuven, Paris, and Warpole, MA: Peeters, 2016), pp. 79-117; Peter Tarras, ‚Building a Christian Arabic
Library at Mount Sinai: The Scribe Thomas of Fustat and the Manuscripts of His Workshop‛,
forthcoming.
An New Arabic Fragment of Jacob of Serugh
140
Within St Catherine’s Monastery, the fragmented parts of the original manuscripts of
these scribes have not only survived among the New Finds, but have also been preserved
through forms of secondary use. I have recently drawn attention to a Christian Arabic
fragment in the back cover of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Syr. 274, which is a part
of the table of contents of a manuscript copied by the famous scribe Antony David of
Baghdad (Anṭūna Dāwūd b. Sulaymān al-Baġdādī) of the Monastery of Mar Saba in the
Judean Desert (MS Sinai, St Catherine's Monastery, Ar. 428).
4
Another example is the
fragment in the back cover of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Slav. 7, which was very
likely copied by a scribe from the Monastery of Mar Chariton. The hand is rather similar to
that of other well-known Charitonian scribes, especially Stephen of Ramla (Iṣṭāfanā b.
Ḥakam ar-Ramlī) or Michael the Deacon (Mīḫāʾīl al-Šammās).
5
These finds can prove to be
important pieces in the puzzle of the history of early Christian Arabic scribality and the
history of Christian Arabic literature more generally.
Here, I would like to demonstrate this by looking at another such find. It is a further
fragment that was used in a secondary way in the back cover of a different manuscript.
This fragment can again be attributed to a well-known scribe. The fragment survived as a
pastedown in the back board of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 516. It was taken
from a codex copied by the scribe Thomas of Fustat (Tūmā al-Fusṭāṭī), who was active in
the Sinai monastery at the end of the 9th and beginning of the 10th century CE. An
extensive corpus of his manuscripts has survived to the present day.
6
This corpus preserves
a great number of very interesting texts, especially since we find among them some of the
oldest examples of Christian Arabic translation literature.
The fragment presented here is an example of this. It contains the end of Jacob of
Serugh’s (d. 520 or 521) homily On the Baptism of Our Saviour in the Jordan (d-ʿal ʿmāḏeh d-
Pārōqan da-ḇ-Yōrdnān).
7
The text will henceforth be referred to as On Epiphany. In the
4
See Peter Tarras, ‚Miscellaneous Identifications I: A New Fragment by the Scribe Antony David of
Baghdad‛, Membra Dispersa Sinaitica (5 March 2024), DOI: <https://doi.org/10.58079/vy9y>. On MS
Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 428 and its membra disjecta, see A. Binggeli, ‚Les trois David‛, pp. 85-
87.
5
An image of this fragment is printed in Nicholas Pickwoad, ‚The Saint Catherine’s Monastery Library
Conservation Project and the Slavonic Manuscripts‛, in Cyril Mango, Marlia Mango, Earleen Brunner,
and Father Justin (eds), St Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai: Its Manuscripts and their Conservation: Papers
Given in Memory of Professor Ihor Ševčenko (London: Saint Catherine Foundation, 2011), pp. 71-80, fig. 11.8.
The hand in this fragment is identical to the one responsible for MS St Andrews, St Andrews University
Library, 14, which Miriam L. Hjälm recently compared to the hands of Stephen of Ramla and Michael the
Deacon; see Miriam L. Hjälm, ‚Lost and Found: Christian Arabic Membra Disjecta in the Mingana
Collection‛, in: Israel Muñoz Gallarte and Marzena Zawanowska (eds), Lost and Bound: Reconstruction
Techniques in Fragmentary Manuscripts of the Jewish and Christian Traditions, Aramaeo-Arabica et Graeca, 5
(Salamanca and Madrid: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca and Editorial Sindéresis, 2022), pp. 125-154,
at pp. 136-139; Miriam L. Hjälm, ‚A Paleographical Study of Early Christian Arabic Manuscripts‛,
Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 17 (2020), pp. 37–77, at p. 57; see also M. L. Hjälm and P. Tarras, ‚Early
Christian Arabic Colophons‛, p. 134, esp. n. 38.
6
See P. Tarras, ‚Building a Christian Arabic Library‛.
7
For the different titles under which this text was transmitted in Syriac, see Khalil Alwan, Les œuvres de
Jacques de Saroug dans la tradition arabe: Inventaire des manuscrits arabes, Series Syro-Arabica, 10
(Cordoba/Beirut: CNERU/CEDRAC, 2019), p. 125; Roger-Youssef Akhrass, ‚A List of Homilies of Mar
Peter Tarras
141
Christian East, Jacob was a very influential author. More than 700 metrical homilies (mēmrē)
are ascribed to him, and around 400 homilies appear to have been preserved in Syriac
manuscripts under his name.
8
Parts of his homiletic corpus were also transmitted in other
linguistic traditions of the Christian East, e.g. in Armenian, Coptic, Gǝʿǝz, and Georgian.
9
Roughly 100 homilies are attested in Arabic translation.
10
The earliest Arabic translations of
Jacob’s homilies are preserved in manuscripts of the 9th to 11th centuries CE. A peculiar
feature of these manuscripts is that they all seem to have been written in the Sinai
Jacob of Serugh‛, Syriac Orthodox Patriarchal Journal 53 (2015), pp. 87-161, at p. 89. The Syriac text is edited
in Paulus Bedjan, Homiliae Selectae Jacobi Sarugensis, vol. 1 (Paris/Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1905), pp.
167–193. The Syriac text together with an English is also available in Thomas Kollamparampil, Jacob of
Serugh’s Homily on Epiphany, Texts from Christian Late Antiquity, 4, Jacob of Serugh’s Metrical Homilies,
Fascicle 2 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2008). For a modern Arabic translation, see Mīḫāʾīl Aṯanāsiyūs,
Kitāb Mayāmir ay Mawāʿiẓ as-Sarūǧī (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat Miṣr bi-l-Faǧāla, 1905), pp. 333-343.
8
See R.-Y. Akhrass, ‚A List‚. For other bibliographical aids, see Arthur Vööbus, Handschriftliche
Überlieferung der Mēmrē-Dichtung des Jaʿqōb von Serūg, 4 vols, CSCO, 344-345, 421-422, Subsidia, 39-40, 60-61
(Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1973); Khalil Alwan, ‚Bibliographie générale raisonnée de Jacques
de Saroug‛, Parole de l’Orient 13 (1986), pp. 313–383; Sebastian P. Brock, ‚Jacob of Serugh: A Select
Bibliographical Guide‛, in: George A. Kiraz (ed.), Jacob of Serugh and His Times: Studies in Sixth-Century Syriac
Christianity, Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies, 8 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2010), pp. 219-244.
9
For Armenian, see e.g. Andy Hilkens, ‚The Armenian Reception of the Homilies of Jacob of Serugh:
New Findings‛, in: Madalina Toca and Dan Batovici (eds), Caught in Translation: Versions of Late Antique
Christian Literature, Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity, 17 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2020), pp. 64-
84; Andy Hilkens, ‚The Manuscripts of the Armenian Homilies of Jacob of Serugh: Preliminary
Observations and Checklist‛, Manuscripta 64/1 (2020), pp. 1-71. For Coptic, see e.g. Alin Suciu, ‚The
Sahidic Version of Jacob of Serugh’s Memrā on the Ascension of Christ‛, Le Muséon 128 (2015), pp. 49-83.
For Gǝʿǝz, see Witold Witakowski, ‚Jacob of Serug‛, in: Siegbert Uhlig (ed.), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, vol.
III: He–N (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007), pp. 262-263; Tedros Abraha, ‚Jacob of Serug in the Ethiopic
Tradition under Review and New Clues about the Background of the Gǝʿǝz Anaphora Ascribed to Jacob
of Serug‛, in: Rafał Zarzeczny (ed.), Aethiopia fortitudo ejus: Studi in onore di Monsignor Osvaldo Raineri in
occasione del suo 80º compleanno, Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 298 (Roma: Pontificio Istituto Orientale,
2015), pp. 463-478. For Georgian, see e.g. Tamara Pataridze, ‚La version géorgienne d’une homélie de
Jacques de Saroug Sur la Nativité: Étude et traduction‛, Le Muséon 121 (2008), pp. 373-402.
10
See Georg Graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur, vol. 1: Die Übersetzungen, Studi e testi, 118
(Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1944), pp. 444-452; K. Alwan, Les œuvres. On the Arabic
transmission of Jacob’s homilies, see Georg Graf, ‚Maymar ġayr maʿrūf li-Mār Yaʿqūb al-Sarūǧī‛, al-
Mašriq 48 (1954), pp. 46-49; Joseph-Marie Sauget, ‚L’homéliaire arabe de la Bibliothèque Ambrosienne
(X.198 Sup.) et ses membra disiecta‛, Analecta Bollandiana 88 (1970), pp. 391-475; Joseph-Marie Sauget, ‚La
collection homilético-hagiographique du manuscrit Sinaï arabe 457‛, Proche-Orient Chrétien 22 (1972), pp.
129-167; Samir Khalil Samir, ‚Un example de contacts culturels entre les églises syriaques et arabes:
Jacques de Saroug dans la tradition arabe‛, in René Lavenant (ed.), III° Symposium Syriacum 1980: Les
contacts du monde syriaque avec les autres cultures (Goslar 7–11 Septembre 1980) (Rome: Pontificium Institutum
Studiorum Orientalium, 1983), pp. 213-245; Aaron M. Butts, ‚The Christian Arabic Transmission of
Jacob of Serugh (d. 521): The Sammlungen‛, Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 16 (2016), pp. 39-
59; Aaron M. Butts, ‚Diversity in the Christian Arabic Reception of Jacob of Serugh (d. 521)‛, in: Barbara
Roggema and Alexander Treiger (eds), Patristic Literature in Arabic Translations, Arabic Christianity, 2
(Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2020), pp. 89–129; Aaron M. Butts and Ted Erho, ‚Jacob of Serugh in the
Ambrosian Homiliary (ms. Ambros. X.198 sup. and its membra disiecta)‛,
Δελτίο Βιβλικῶν Μελετῶν
33
(2018), pp. 37-54; Vasiliki Chamourgiotaki, Eine frühe arabische Übersetzung der Homilie Jakobs von Sarug ‚Über
das Herrenwort ‘Ihr sollt überhaupt nicht schwören’‛: Syrische und arabische Edition mit Übersetzung, MA thesis
(Berlin: Freie Universität, 2020), esp. app. 5-6.
An New Arabic Fragment of Jacob of Serugh
142
monastery.
11
Their codicological characteristics suggest that they were written for internal
use within this monastery. Hence, their primary readers were Sinai’s arabophone monks.
The new fragment exhibits one of these translations. Fortunately, it allows us to recover
at least part of the previously lost text of this homily. On Epiphany was transmitted in
Arabic in three recensions.
12
The oldest recension, recension B, was thus far known only
from two fragments in two Sinaitic manuscripts: (1) MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery,
Ar. 457 (9th/10th c.), f. 42v; (2) MS Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, X 198 sup. (11th c.), ff.
28r–29v.
13
The first manuscript preserves no more than a partly illegible title and one line
of text (verses 1–2). In the second manuscript, the title was cut out at the bottom of the
recto of folio 28. The verso of this folio preserves 17 lines from the beginning of the text.
14
Folio 29, again, exhibits mutilation and only two lines of text (verses 483–488/491) are
preserved at the bottom of the recto; the verso used to contain the end of the text, as can
be deduced from the subsequent title and text at the bottom, a homily by Ephrem on the
same topic. Both manuscripts attest to no more than ca. 8 % of the Arabic translation. The
new fragment allows us to recover an additional 30 verses, almost doubling the accessible
amount of text (now ca. 15 %).
15
In what follows, I will offer a description of the new fragment and provide a diplomatic
edition and English translation. The Arabic text will also be compared to its Syriac Vorlage.
I would like to express my gratitude to St Catherine’s Monastery and especially Father
Justin Sinaites, Librarian of St Catherine’s Monastery, for permission to use the image
reproduced at the end of this contribution.
16
11
According to J.-M. Sauget, ‚La collection‛, pp. 140-141 one cannot tell if these manuscripts were
produced on Mount Sinai or in the monastery of Mar Saba in the Judean Desert. In fact, the Christian
Arabic scribes of both monasteries had strong ties, with the Sabaites probably taking a leading role; cf.
Willi Heffening, ‚Die griechische Ephraem-Paraenesis gegen das Lachen in arabischer Übersetzung I‛,
Oriens Christianus, III. Series, 2 (1927), pp. 94-119, at p. 102. Still, as we shall see below, the palaeographical
evidence proves the Sinaitic origin of the earliest manuscripts transmitting Jacob’s homilies in Arabic.
12
See Kh. Alwan, Les œuvres, pp. 126–128.
13
J.-M. Sauget, ‚L’homéliaire‛, pp. 432–433; idem, ‚La collection‛, p. 146; S. Kh. Samir, ‚Un example‛, pp.
221-222; 236-237; Kh. Alwan, Les œuvres, pp. 125-130. One membrum disjectum of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s
Monastery, Ar. 457 was identified by Sauget: MS Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Ar.
1826; see J.-M. Sauget, ‚La collection‛. Additionally, several membra disjecta of the Ambrosiana manuscript
have been identified. These are: MS Birmingham, Cadbury Research Library, Mingana Collection Chr. Ar.
Add. 133 (2 ff.); MS London, British Library, Or. 5019 (15 ff.); MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,
Cod.arab. 1067 (3 ff.); MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. NF M 46 (7 ff.); see J.-M. Sauget,
‚L’homéliaire‛; Pier F. Fumagalli, ‚The Arabic Manuscripts of the Ambrosiana and the ‘Homiliarium’
Ambr. X 198 sup.‛, in: J.-M. Sauget (ed.), Arabic Homilies on the Nativity, Fontes Ambrosini, New Series, III
(Milan: Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, 2000), pp. 53-73.
14
The first line starts with verse 1: , which translates:
. The last legible line (17) preserves the beginning of verse 43: ,
which translates: .
15
It also allows us to recover the text’s desinit whose absence from the other two manuscript witnesses was
lamented by Kh. Alwan, Les œuvres, p. 126, n. 7. It reads: .
16
I would also like to thank the following persons for their help and advice: Roger Akhrass, Aaron M. Butts,
Vasiliki Chamourgiotaki, Alexander Treiger. I am grateful to Dawn Childress, Librarian for Digital
Collections and Scholarship at UCLA’s Digital Library Program, for her kind support.
Peter Tarras
143
Description
Provenance and date: The secondary use that ultimately preserved the fragment certainly post-
dates the production of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 516. A membrum disjectum of
this manuscript is found in the Mingana Collection: MS Birmingham, Cadbury Research
Library, Mingana Collection Chr. Ar. Add. 143. In his catalogue, Alphonse Mingana
describes the contents of this single leaf as ‚the end of the life of the emperor Jovian, in
connection with a miracle performed on a sick girl‛.
17
However, the text is, in fact, an early
Arabic translation of the Syriac Julian Romance.
18
It was copied by an Egyptian scribe named
Saʿīd b. Iṣṭafanā in the month of Thout (August/September) of the year 316 AH (928
CE).
19
This date is not directly related to the age of the new fragment. From a
palaeographical viewpoint, however, we can assume that the new fragment (or the codex
from which it derived) is maybe some decades older. MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery,
Ar. 516 and the fragment in its back board, thus, roughly fall into the same period of
origin.
This assumption is supported by palaeography (see below). The new fragment is written
in the hand of the well-know scribe Thomas of Fustat of the Sinai monastery who was
active in the second half of the 9th and the early 10th century CE. Thomas is probably
best-known for being responsible for the scriptio superior of two famous palimpsests, the
Mingana-Lewis Palimpsest (MS Cambridge, University Library, Or. 1287 + membra disjecta)
and the Codex Arabicus (MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 514 + membra disjecta).
20
Further, there is reason to assume that the secondary use of the fragment possibly dates to
the 12th century CE. The early Sinaitic manuscripts that preserve Jacob of Serugh’s works,
on the one hand, testify to a profound admiration of his religious poetry; on the other
hand, especially their physical features betray a growing uneasiness with respect to his
theological position. As a miaphysite, Jacob represented non-Chalcedonian Christianity.
Still, little, if anything, of this non-Chalcedonianism transpired his homiletic compositions,
17
Alphonse Mingana, Catalogue of the Mingana Collection of Manuscripts Now in the Possession of the Trustees of the
Woodbrooke Settlement, Selly Oak, Birmingham, vol. III: Additional Christian Arabic and Syriac Manuscripts,
Woodbrooke Catalogues, III (Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons, Ltd., 1939), p. 47.
18
See Uri Ben-Horin, ‚An Unknown Old Arabic Translation of the Syriac Romance of Julian the
Apostate‛, Studia Hierosolymitana 9 (1961), pp. 1-10.
19
A. Mingana, Catalogue, pp. 47-48. Mingana read the date as 716 according to the Coptic era of the Martyrs,
corresponding to 999/1000 CE. However, he also pointed out that the date, written in Greek/Coptic
numerals, could be read as the Muslim era date 316 (ΤΙϚ´), which corresponds to the year 928 CE. See A.
Mingana, Catalogue, p. 47, n. 2. After careful examination of the date, I have adopted this second reading,
especially since the first, decisive numeral, is clearly written like a Greek Τ (= 300).
20
See Grigory Kessel, Grigory, ‚A Catacomb of Syriac Texts: Codex Arabicus (Sin. ar. 514) Revisited‛, in:
Claudia Rapp, Giulia Rossetto, Jana Grusková, and Grigory Kessel (eds), New Light on Old Manuscripts: The
Sinai Palimpsests and other Advances in Palimpsest Studies, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften:
Philosophisch-historische Klasse: Denkschriften, 547 = Veröffentlichungen zur Byzanzforschung, 45
(Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2023), pp. 101-129; Alain George, ‚Le
palimpseste Lewis-Mingana de Cambridge, témoin ancien de l’histoire du Coran’, Comptes rendus de
l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 1 (2011), pp. 377-429, at pp. 407-408; Miriam L. Hjälm, ‚A
Paleographical Study of Early Christian Arabic Manuscripts‛, Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 17 (2020), pp.
37-77. See also Peter Tarras, ‚Library‛.
An New Arabic Fragment of Jacob of Serugh
144
such that the Melkites of Mount Sinai apparently saw no problem in reading, transmitting,
and translating his works – at least for some time. In most part, the early Arabic
translations of Jacob’s homilies survive only fragmentarily. This is due to a shift in attitude
towards this author, which might have taken place in the 12th century, as Samir Khalil
Samir hypothesised.
21
Whatever the exact historical background, the manuscripts give
ample proof of censorship, which involved decided mutilation of books: folios and whole
quires were cut out or otherwise removed and Jacob’s name was erased or substituted in
titles and tables of contents. If we follow Samir’s hypothesis regarding a 12th-century date
for the mutilation of codices containing Arabic translations of Jacob of Serugh’s works at
Sinai, the re-use of the fragment might date to the same century or later.
Codicology: The writing support is parchment. The single leaf was glued to the back board
with the flesh side, displaying now the hair side (the parchment has considerably darkened;
hair follicles can be seen in some places). There are no signs of quire signatures or foliation.
The outer margin was cut. The outer upper corner is covered by parts of folio 95 that stick
to the cover. The fragment exhibits further damage through tears, holes, and dampness.
MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 516 measures 236 × 180 mm.
22
The fragment has
roughly the same dimensions. It exhibits 18 lines of writing in black-brown ink, only few of
which have been preserved entirely.
Another noteworthy feature is Thomas’ use of two types of textual dividers: two
vertically arranged dots and four dots arranged in the shape of a cross. Identical textual
dividers were used by him in MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 457 (see table 1). The
bottom has a comparably large margin of the height of ca. five lines. The same mise-en-page
is also found in MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 457 (and other manuscripts
produced by Thomas).
21
S. Kh. Samir, ‚Un exemple‛, pp. 243-244. See also J.-M. Sauget, ‚L’homéliaire‛, pp. 473; J.-M. Sauget,
‚La collection‛, pp. 140; Kh. Alwan, Les œuvres, pp. 99-100.
22
This information is derived from the website Sinai Manuscripts Digital Library:
https://sinaimanuscripts.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:%2F21198%2Fz16t25bb (last accessed: 10 May
2024). It must be noted that the measurements given there slightly differ from those in the catalogues
(which, at times, also slightly differ among each other). See Margaret Dunlop Gibson, Catalogue of the
Arabic Mss. in the Convent of S. Catharine on Mount Sinai, Studia Sinaitica, III (London: C. J. Clay and Sons,
1894), p. 102 (220 × 150 mm); Aziz S. Atiya, The Arabic Manuscripts of Mount Sinai: A hand-list of the Arabic
manuscripts and scrolls microfilmed at the library of the Monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai (Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins Press, 1955), p. 19 (225 × 160 mm); Murad Kamil, Catalogue of all manuscripts in the
Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1970), p. 50 (225 × 160). Mingana,
Catalogue, p. 47 records for his fragment: 223 × 162 mm.
Peter Tarras
145
Sin. ar. 457
New Fragment
Sin. ar. 457
New Fragment
Table 1: The two types of textual dividers as found in the new fragment in comparison to MS Sinai, St
Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 457, f. 42v.
The other two manuscripts mentioned above, which preserve parts of the early Arabic
translation of On Epiphany, can give us an idea of the amount of folios required by that text.
In MS Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, X 198 sup. the entire text must have covered
approximately ten pages or five folios. This estimation accords with Sauget’s calculation
that four folios are missing from quires 7 and 8 to which folios 28 and 29 belong
respectively.
23
With respect to MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 457, Sauget
calculated that six folios are missing from the 8th quire to which folio 42 used to belong.
24
It is not unreasonable to assume that the text of On Epiphany occupied these six folios. In
fact, since this manuscript and the new fragment were written by the same scribe and share
the same mise-en-page as well as roughly the same dimensions,
25
one may speculate that the
fragment comes from this manuscript. It would then probably constitute the last folio of
quire 8 and, together with f. 41, it would have formed the outer bifolio of a quaternion.
However, this can only be corroborated on the basis of autoptic inspection.
26
Palaeography: The new fragment is written in the characteristic hand of the Sinaitic scribe
Thomas of Fustat. The palaeographical features of this hand have been described in a
number of previous publications.
27
For this reason, a detailed palaeographic description is
23
J.-M. Sauget, ‚L’homéliaire‛, p. 405.
24
J.-M. Sauget, ‚La collection‛, p. 132.
25
For MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 457, our catalogues give the following numbers: 220 × 170
mm (Gibson, Catalogue, p. 89); 225 × 170 mm (A. S. Atiya, Hand-list, p. 15); 225 × 170 mm (M. Kamil,
Catalogue, p. 32).
26
Other fragments from the same manuscript corpus are also possible joins. For instance, Sauget observed
that the shelfmark MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 457 also contains four external fragments that
originally pertained to different codices; J.-M. Sauget, ‚La collection‛, pp. 134-136. He was able to
identify two of these: fragment 3 (f. 5r–v) pertains to MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 461; cf. also
Miriam L. Hjälm, ‚Lost and Found: Christian Arabic Membra Disjecta in the Mingana Collection’, in:
Israel Muñoz Gallarte and Marzena Zawanowska (eds), Lost and Bound: Reconstruction Techniques in
Fragmentary Manuscripts of the Jewish and Christian Traditions, Aramaeo-Arabica et Graeca, 5 (Salamanca and
Madrid: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca and Editorial Sindéresis, 2022), pp. 125-154, at pp. 129-136.
Fragment 4 (ff. 6r–11v) pertains to MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 460. Fragment 2 (f. 4r–v)
shares similar features as the new fragment. However, the parent codex as well as the text of fragment 2
remain unidentified.
27
See Johannes Oestrup, ‚Über zwei arabische Codices sinaitici der Strassburger Universitäts- und
Landesbibliothek‛, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 51/3 (1897), pp. 435-471, at p. 454;
David S. Margoliouth, ‚Introductory Observations‛, in Agnes S. Lewis and Margaret D. Gibson, Forty-
An New Arabic Fragment of Jacob of Serugh
146
not necessary here and we can limit ourselves to a few specific features. Recently, Miriam
Hjälm placed Thomas’ hand in the category of Christian Arabic transitional New Style
scripts, which is a type of script characterised by vertical extension and a tendency towards
straight lines.
28
This last feature is a precursor of Nasḫ, which is why it is not surprising that
Thomas’ hand was previously categorised as Nasḫ. As I have pointed out elsewhere, none
of these earlier studies seeks to identify features that pertain to Thomas’ hand alone.
29
Instead, his hand is regularly compared to that of one of his contemporary Antony David
of Baghdad.
30
To be sure, coeval scribes like Thomas and Antony David who, in addition,
worked in two closely interconnected scribal settings did not seek to develop a
personalised, individualistic style. Still, this does not exclude the presence of personal
features.
Willi Heffening was the first to draw attention to the differences in the hands of the two
scribes. In general, he observed that Thomas’ hand is less graceful (‚zierlich‛) and has less
sweeping ascenders (‚Schwung in den Oberlängen‛); he described it as thicker and more
chunky (‚klobiger‛). More significant are his observations on the shapes of individual
letters: the head of Thomas’ alif is club shaped;
31
isolated ḥāʾ and ʿayn have vertical
descenders and exhibit twirls that end to the right; isolated and final lām always descends
One Facsimiles of Dated Christian Arabic Manuscripts with Text and English Translation, Studia Sinaitica, XII
(Cambridge: University Press, 1907), pp. ix–xvi, at p. xiii; Willi Heffening, ‚Die griechische Ephraem-
Paraenesis‛, pp. 101-102; Jean Mansour, Homélies et légendes religieuses: Un florilège arabe chrétien du Xe s. (Ms.
Strasbourg 4225), PhD Dissertation (Strasbourg: Université Marc Bloch Strasbourg, 1972), p. xviii; Alain
George, ‚Le palimpseste Lewis-Mingana de Cambridge, témoin ancien de l’histoire du Coran’, Comptes
rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 1 (2011), pp. 377-429, at pp. 407-408; Miriam L. Hjälm, ‚A
Paleographical Study of Early Christian Arabic Manuscripts‛, Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 17 (2020), pp.
37-77, at pp. 64-69; M. L. Hjälm and P. Tarras, ‚Colophons‛, pp. 152-153. See also P. Tarras, ‚Library‛.
28
M. L. Hjälm, ‚A Paleographical Study‛.
29
Cf. P. Tarras, ‚Building a Christian Arabic Library‛.
30
On Antony David and his manuscript corpus, see J. Oestrup, ‚Über zwei arabische Codices sinaitici‛;
Ignaz Kračkovsky, ‚Новозавѣтный апокриФъ въ арабской рукописи 885-886 года по P. Xp. [A New
Testament Apokryphon in an Arabic Manuscript of the Year A.D. 885-886]‚, Византийский
Временник 14/2–3 (1907), pp. 246-275; W. Heffening, ‚Die griechische Ephraem-Paraenesis‛; Michel
van Esbroeck, ‚Un feuillet oublié du codex arabe Or. 4226, à Strasbourg‚, Analecta Bollandiana 96 (1978),
pp. 383-384; S. H. Griffith, ‚Anthony David‛; A. Binggeli, ‚Les trois David‛; Miriam L. Hjälm, ‚From
Palestine to Damascus to Berlin: Early Christian Arabic texts from the Qubbat al-khazna in the Violet
collection‛, in: Arianna D’Ottone Rambach, Konrad Hirschler, and Ronny Vollandt (eds), The Damascus
Fragments: Towards a History of the Qubbat al-Khazna Corpus of Manuscripts and Documents, Beiruter Texte und
Studien, 140 (Beirut: Ergon Verlag, 2020), pp. 245-264, at pp. 252-255; Miriam L. Hjälm and P. Tarras,
‚Colophons‛, pp. 143-144; Ariana D’Ottone, ‚Sharing the Written Space: Contact & Interaction between
Arabic and Other Cultures/Scripts’, in: Antoine Borrut, Manuela Ceballos, and Alison M. Vacca (eds),
Navigating Language in the Early Islamic World: Multilingualism and Language Change in the First Centuries of Islam,
Interdisciplinary Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2024), pp. 403-
423; Peter Tarras, ‚Miscellaneous Identifications I‛.
31
A. George, ‚Le palimpseste‛, p. 407 emphasises that there is indeed a certain variety of forms for this
letter. In addition to the club shape at the upper end, loops ending on the left are also common.
Sometimes the loop is only a slight thickening.
Peter Tarras
147
below the baseline;
32
the body of ṭāʾ exhibits less horizontal extension and is more cobby
(‚gedrungener‛); the ligature looks differently (that of Antony David looks like a
flattened 3 with the centre point on the baseline). Alain George added further descriptions
for the shapes of the letters hāʾ, dāl, ǧīm, and mīm.
33
Particularly characteristic of Thomas, in my view, is the observation George makes for
final ǧīm (and ḥāʾ and ḫāʾ respectively), namely that it is reminiscent of a mīm in modern
Arabic script and resembles a distorted Z leaning to the right, with two acute angles. In the
table below (table 2), our attribution can be checked once more by comparing the letters
mentioned with the same letters from MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 457.
alif
ǧīm/ḥāʾ
dāl
ṭāʾ
ʿayn
lām
mīm
hāʾ
Table 2. Characteristic letter shapes in the new fragment (first row) and in MS Sinai, St Catherine’s
Monastery, Ar. 457 (second row).
Text: The new fragment preserves the end of Jacob of Serugh’s On Epiphany. The Arabic
title of the text is attested in the table of contents of the Ambrosiana manuscript (= MS
London, British Library, Or. 5019, ff. 1v–4v).
34
It reads: ‚On the Baptism of our Lord
Christ‛ (ʿalā maʿmūdiyyat rabbinā al-Masīḥ). In order to take stock of the preserved text, I
refer to the verse division as it can be found e.g. in Kollamparampil.
35
The new fragment
comprises verses 491–530, although not all of them are complete and some have been
omitted. Verse 497 is lost due to damage. Verses 488 and 491 appear to have been
contracted in the translation; similarly verses 492 and 493. Verses 519-523 (as well as 531-
532) were completely omitted. The new fragment overlaps with the Ambrosiana
manuscript at only one verse (488/491), which was exploited below to reconstruct the
32
This observation does not seem entirely correct. Isolated and final lām goes below the baseline in some
cases and in certain combinations with other preceding letter (e.g. in the words kull or minaǧl []), but
in others the horizontal stroke usually sits on the line (e.g. in the words qawl or qāla).
33
A. George, ‚Le palimpseste‛, pp. 407-408.
34
See J.-M. Sauget, ‚L’homéliaire‛, p. 411.
35
Th. Kollamparampil, Jacob of Serugh’s Homily on Epiphany.
An New Arabic Fragment of Jacob of Serugh
148
damaged first line. I have also used MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 401 for
comparative means. This latter manuscript, according to Alwan, exhibits recension A.
36
Our fragment seems to indicate that this recension is based on recension B (see the note on
verse 511 below).
Diplomatic Edition and Translation
Translation
Text
lines
[488/491]
[… this is] my beloved son [...]
[492/493]
[...]
37
1
[...] deliver mankind, it did not diminish
when he descended in the water.
[494]
So he
refrained […]
[495]
[...]
2
[…] his descent and after his descent.
[496]
And with joy his father was near to him
since [his] childhood […]
[497]
[...]
3
[498]
And in it [i.e. Christ’s baptism] the
priesthood was perfected.
[499]
And from it
the deposit proceeded, which [...]
4
[500]
And he sent his son to receive it in the
water from John.
[501]
And it was handed
down from [...]
5
the sons of Levi.
[502]
And the Lion’s
whelp arose from the house of Judah
38
and took it from [him].
[503]
[… on Mount]
܀
6
Sinai from the Exalted One.
[504]
And
through John it overflowed from our
Saviour there as well.
[505]
From the
beginning [the Father] took […]
[506]
[…]
܀
7
36
See Alwan, Les œuvres, p. 126.
37
MS Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, X 198 sup., f. 29r reads: . Cp. also MS Sinai, St
Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 401, f. 147v:20. In the Ambrosiana manuscript, the verse follows verse 487,
but as a translation of verse 488 it is rather free, turning the third person into the first in accordance with
Matthew 3:17. This biblical verse is quoted twice by Jacob (verses 104 and 367). Verse 488 was possibly
translated in agreement with these occurrences. Moreover, ibnī l-ḥabīb appears to be the lexical equivalent
of kaḏ ḥabbīḇāh (reading bar instead of kaḏ) from verse 491 and not rḥūmā from verse 488.
38
Genesis 9:49.
Peter Tarras
149
follow a path as the alien one.
[507]
That
priesthood which was given from the
house of Aaron.
[508]
The Apostles
܀
܀
8
were given it as the Saviour had given it to
them.
[509]
The great, the head of the
priests, was not lacking in
܀
9
priesthood.
[510]
Thus, he came and took it
at the baptism and then he gave it.
[511]
But
so as not to confound the path […]
10
he is the head
39
of the fathers.
[512]
The
Father renewed the old things.
[513]
Not
because he was lacking and in need of
anything.
[514]
It was that [...]
܀
܀
11
all waters and rivers.
[515]
And all the nature
of water is from the sea and [the sea] is
not lacking.
[516]
And the power of water is
not [...]
12
by coming together in it [i.e. the sea].
[517]
Christ was not in need of receiving [from]
the hand of Aaron.
[518]
And it [i.e. the
priesthood] was imposed upon him. And
not insufficient and not [...]
܀
13
into the right [hand] of John. And the
kingship was not in need of the house of
David.
[524]
His kingdom was greater than
the sea and [it is sufficient …]
40
܀
܀
14
[525]
He ascended as he descended by
sanctification and as he willed.
[526]
And he
took the voice from his begetter.
[527]
The
Spirit encircled [...]
܀
15
39
The translator seems to have read instead of . Cp. MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 401, f.
148v:13: . Since recension A keeps the mistranslation and adds text in order to make
sense of it, this suggests that recension A is dependent upon recension B.
40
The phrase does not correspond to anything in between verses 518 and 524. As noted above,
the translation omits verses 519 through 523 altogether.
An New Arabic Fragment of Jacob of Serugh
150
the Christ, the baptised bridegroom.
41
[528]
And the church believed that he was the
Lord and prostrated [before him]
[529]
[...]
16
the perfect one who came to baptise the
insufficient ones by the waters.
[530]
Your
perfect tenderness, which is filled
[abundantly with]
܀
17
your mercy, overflowing upon our
insufficiency, forever and ever, amen.
18
Commentary
Even if the new fragment only gives us a comparatively small and partly fragmentary text
sample, some general observations can be made regarding the Arabic translation. The
translation remains close to the original, but this does not result in a completely literal
translation. In the broad spectrum between literalness and free paraphrase, it has
nevertheless a clear tendency towards literalness. This can be observed on the levels of
syntax, vocabulary, and style.
At the level of syntax, there are some examples where the translation is almost
completely congruent with its Vorlage (e.g. verse 500: wa-baʿaṯa bnahū li-yaʾḫuḏhā bi-l-amyāh
min Yuḥannā = w-šaḏreh la-ḇreh d-nasḇrāh b-mayyā men Yūḥanān; verse 502: wa-qāma ǧarw al-asad
min bayt Yahūḏā aḫaḏahā minhū = w-qām [h]wā gūryā d-beṯ Īhūḏā w-šaqlāh meneh). The linguistic
proximity between Syriac and Arabic naturally makes it easier to form analogous sentences.
But Jacob employs some stylistic devices, e.g. the relatively free use of word order, which
the translator also had to deal with. In general, the translator has tried to maintain the word
order of the original. Sentences that begin with the verb in the initial position in the Vorlage
usually also begin with the verb in Arabic. In a number of cases Jacob makes use of
extraposition, e.g. by placing the subject in the initial position. This is mirrored in the
translation (e.g. verse 529: at-tāmm allaḏī ǧāʾa etc. = gmīrā ḏe-ṯā etc., ‚the perfect one who
came‛). But the translator also undid extrapositions. In verse 503, for instance, he leaves
the verb in the initial position: wa-ḥalla bi-yaday Yūḥannā etc. (‚and it overflowed through
John‛) vs. wa-ḇ-Yūḥanān … eštappaʿ (‚and through John … it overflowed‛).
41
Several scholars have pointed out that the Syriac word ḥaṯnā that begins the homily (verse 1) has been
mistranslated. See Kh. S. Samir, ‚Un example‛, p. 221, n. 30; J.-M. Sauget, ‚L’homéliaire‛, p. 432; Kh.
Alwan, Les œuvres, p. 128, n. 4. The translation there is , i.e. either al-mutaḥannin (‚the one who feels
pity‛) or al-mutaḥannan (‚the one who is pitied‛). The latter is close in spelling and meaning to Syriac
meṯḥanānā, a possible misreading for mḥaṯnā (‚taking in marriage‛). Alwan suggests a misreading of ḥanānā
for ḥaṯnā. In any case, Samir’s suggestion that the scribe replaced the lesser known al-ḫatan with the better
known al-mutaḥannin, is not convincing and does not explain the correct translation here.
Peter Tarras
151
As far as clauses are concerned, no major changes can be detected in the translation.
Coordinated clauses are translated as coordinated clauses and subordinate clauses as
subordinate clauses (e.g. verse 513: laysa li-annahū etc. = law ʿal d- etc.). Only in one case
(verse 524) the temporal subjugation kaḏ seems to have remained untranslated.
42
The Syriac
relative pronoun d- is translated as allaḏī/allatī (verses 507, 529). If d- is used as a
conjunction and followed by a verb in the Vorlage, the Arabic translator once uses the
conjunction fa- (verse 494), once the causal conjunction li-allā (= d-lā, verse 511).
At the level of vocabulary, we can note that the translator could draw on a whole series
of cognate roots: balbala (balbel); ǧarw (gūryā); ḥabīb (hbībā); ḫatan (ḥaṯnā); silīḥūna (slīḥē); ʿatīqa
(ʿattīqāṯā); qabila (qabbel); taqdīs (qadīšā); qāma (qām); wālid (yālūḏā). Some were already derived
from Syriac, e.g. maʿmūdiyya (maʿmūḏīṯā).
43
Cognates seem to have been used where
available, but not as a default option. For instance, the Syriac noun šḇīlā (‚path‛) in verse
506 was not translated with the Arabic cognate sabīl; instead, the translator chose the
expression ṭarīq. The translation generally displays lexical consistency. Only in one instance,
the Syriac expression bar (‚son‛), wich is generally rendered by the Arabic expression ibn,
was translated as ṣiban (or ṣabāʾ), ‚childhood‛ (see verse 496).
Somewhat greater deviations from the Vorlage can be observed on the stylistic level. The
translator clearly made use of additions and omissions. As noted above, verses 492-493
seem to have been contracted and we come across a whole series of verses that appear to
have been omitted from the translation. Smaller units can also be omitted. For example, the
subject does not appear in verse 513. The Syriac has the Greek loan word (<
ὠκεανός) in this place. The translator probably did not have any problems understanding
this term. Rather, a comparison of God with the ocean seems to have been avoided
deliberately in order to obtain the clearest and most precise theological statement possible
(God has no lack at all). Smaller additions have a clarificatory function, e.g. ǧarw al-asad
(‚the lion’s whelp‛) vs. gūryā (which itself means ‚lion’s whelp‛ in Syriac and is commonly
used in Jacob as a reference to Christ).
44
We also find extreme contractions such as in verse
512: al-āb ǧaddada l-ʿatīqa (‚the Father renewed the old things‛) vs. meneh dīleh ʿḇaḏ ḥūddāṯā l-
ʿatīqāṯā (‚from what belonged to Him did He make the renewal of old things‛).
45
While the
prepositional phrase meneh dīleh is entirely omitted, the verb ʿḇaḏ and its direct object
ḥūddāṯā are contracted and expressed by the Arabic verb ǧaddada. At the same time, the
translation makes the subject (al-āb) explicit. In verse 488/491, the translator turned
indirect speech into direct speech. This is very likely a case of the influence of parallel
passages (verse 104 and 367), especially since this is a citation of a biblical verse that is of
fundamental importance for the whole topic of the homily.
42
However, as the preceding verses have been omitted from the translation, we do not know how this verse
relates to them syntactically. In verse 492, kaḏ is translated as ʿindamā.
43
See Georg Graf, Verzeichnis arabischer kirchlicher Termini, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum, 147, Subsidia, 8
(Louvain: Imprimerie Orientaliste L. Durbecq, 1954), p. 79
44
See Thomas Kollamparampil, Salvation in Christ According to Jacob of Serugh: An Exegetico-theological Study on the
Homilies of Jacob of Serugh on the Feasts of Our Lord, Gorgias Dissertations in Early Christianity and Patristics,
49 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2010), p. 113, n. 7.
45
Tr. Th. Kollamparampil.
An New Arabic Fragment of Jacob of Serugh
152
In conclusion, the observations made here are only a selection of points that can be
discussed with regard to the Arabic translation of Jacob’s homily On Epiphany. In a next
step, all three fragments of the homily should be edited, which I intend to do in the near
future. However, with very few exceptions, we still lack editions of comparative texts from
the earliest Arabic translations of Jacob’s work. It would be important to find out whether
they all came from the pen of one or more translators. Only then can we better judge the
style and approach of the translation.
Peter Tarras
153
Fragment of the Arabic translation of Jacob of Serugh’s On Epiphany
glued to the inside of the back cover of MS Sinai, St Catherine's Monastery, Ar. 516.Courtesy of Father
Justin, St Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, Egypt.
An New Arabic Fragment of Jacob of Serugh
154
Abstract: This contribution presents a new
Arabic fragment of Jacob of Serugh’s homily
On the Baptism of Our Saviour in the Jordan (On
Epiphany). It has been preserved through
secondary use in the back cover of MS Sinai, St
Catherine's Monastery, Ar. 516 and can be
attributed palaeographically to the Sinaitic
scribe Thomas of Fustat. The translation
belongs to the oldest translations of Jacob's
works into Arabic. The text was previously only
known from two other short fragments. The
new fragment doubles the amount of known
text of this translation. It is contextualised in
detail here and the text is reproduced in a
diplomatic edition and English translation.
Resumen: Esta contribución presenta un
nuevo fragmento árabe de la homilía de Jacobo
de Sarug Sobre el Bautismo de Nuestro Salvador en el
Jordán (Sobre la Epifanía). El fragmento se ha
conservado gracias a un uso secundario en la
cubierta trasera del manuscrito del Monasterio
de Santa Catalina del Sinaí, Sin. Ar. 516 que se
puede atribuir paleográficamente al copista
sinaítico Tomás de Fustat. La traducción
pertenece a las traducciones más antiguas de las
obras de Jacobo al árabe. Hasta ahora, el texto
sólo se conocía por otros dos breves
fragmentos. El nuevo fragmento duplica la
cantidad del texto conocido de esta traducción.
En esta contribución se contextualizará
detalladamente el fragmento y se reproducirá el
texto en una edición diplomática acompañado
de su traducción inglesa.
Keywords: Jacob of Serugh; Christian Arabic
Literature; St Catherine’s Monastery; Sin. Ar.
516; Monastic Literature.
Palabras clave: Jacobo de Sarug; Literatura
árabe cristiana; Monasterio de Santa Catalina;
Sin. Ar. 516; Literatura monástica.
