Journal of Theological Studies NS 19:2 (1968)

NOTES AND STUDIES

THE PROVENANCE OF BM Or. 8606

BM Or. 8606, a Melkite manuscript written at Edessa in A.D. 723, was

bought from a Munich dealer, J. Rosenthal, in 1914, but its importance
as a collection of patristic texts (mostly translated from Greek) was not
realized until fifteen years later when Moss drew attention to its con-
tents.! Some years later, after Chabot had published his handlist of the
Syriac fragments (A 296 inf.) in the Ambrosian Library, Milan,2 Moss
was able to recognize fragment 46 of this collection as containing the
missing first ten folios of Or. 8606. 3 Recently, in the Journal (N.S. xiii
(1962), pp. 249-58), R. W. Thomson edited in full the important colo-
phon of this manuscript, but he leaves the question of whether the
manuscript came from Sinai or the Syrian monastery in Wadi'n
Natrun open (p. 252).
It has hitherto escaped notice that a few years before the manuscript
came on to the market in Munich it had been seen by the learned Syrian
Catholic Patriarch, Ignatius Ephraem II Rahmani, who quotes from
it in the appendix to his Studia Syriaca, fasc. III (Sharfeh, 1908),
pp. 85--'7' There he gives a summary list of its contents and prints parts
of the colophon (corresponding to Thomson's edition, f. 140v.1, ll. 7-33,
f. 141r.l, ll. 3-29)' But of more immediate importance he names the then
owner of the manuscript and states that the manuscript itself had come
from St. Catherine's Monastery, Mt. Sinai (p. 85): 'lam erat hic libellus
excUSUB cum, inter d. D.rla Neumann ordinis Cistemensium ca1ustri
Heiligenkreuz prope Vindobonam codices syriacos praestantissimos a
monasterio s.t Catherinae provenientes et a Melchitis exaratos, duos 4
comperimus, ex quibus hic, loco appendicis ad Im documentum,5 exhi-

I 'A Syriac Patrutic Manuscript', J. T.S. xxx (1929), pp. 249-54. A fuller liat

of content. than that given by M088 is to be found in H. G. Opitz, 'Du syrische

Corpus Athanaaianum', Z.N.W. xxxiii (1934), pp. 18-24.
• 'Inventaire des ffllgmenta de MSS. ayriaques conaervu a la Biblioth~que
ambrosienne & Milan', Le Musion, xlix (1936), pp. 37-54-
J 'Note on the Patristic MS. Milan N° 46', Le Musion, xlix (1936), pp. 289--91.
This fragment was also purchased (along with the other Milan fragments) in
Munich in 1910.
4 The second manuscript is a Melkite TrWdUm, dated A.O. 1367 (= A.D.
1055/6), written by the scribe IoQ.annan bar Yausep. This Io~ is the scribe
of aeveral other surviving manuscripts: BM Add. 1«88 (Synaxariqn) of 1023 or
shortly after; Mingana ayr. 658 (one folio, containing the colophon of a Syna-
xarion), dated 20 May A.O. 1339 (~ A.D. 1028); Vat. &yr. 21 (Synaxarion), dated
1 October A.O. 1353 (= A.D. 1041). He wu probably the brother of Petros
(Poliqarpoe) bar Yau.sep, from the same monastery (St. EIiaaJPanteleemon,
Black Mountain, near Antioch), who wrote BM Add. 14510, dated 29 July
A.G. 1367 (= A.D. 1056).
, Thia ia the 'Ritus receptionis epiacopi et celebrationis Iiturgiae', which has
 NOTES AND STUDIES
bemus 8ubscriptiones finales .. .'. Neumann will thus be the scholar
who added the index at the beginning of the manuscript. 1
Seeing the Melkite origin of the manuscript it is thus not surprising
that its more immediate provenance is Sinai rather than Egypt, and
Milan fro 46 joins the ever increasing number of Milan fragments now
known to derive from Sinai. 1
Or. 8606 is still missing two leaves between ff. 94 and 95 (containing
the end of Basil, Ep. 38, and the beginning of Amphilochius, Homily an
John xiv. 28). It is to be hoped that these too may one day turn up in a
western library. S. P. BROCK
recently been studied by Khouri-Sarkis, 'Ceremonial pour la rl!ception d'un
ev/!que syrien au VI" si~e et liturgie dea Catechumenea', L'Orient Syrien, ii
(1957), pp. 137-&4-·
I Cf. ThoIIl8On, art. cit., p. 2 S I, note 5. Likewise the! note on the missing folia

in the margin of f. 95 r •
The Neumann in question is Wilhelm Anton NeumBIlIl, about whom the
Reverend Professor Severin Grill, Ord. Ciat., has very kindly supplied me with
the following information: Father W. Neumann, a member of the Ciatercian
Monastery of Heiligenkreuz, was born in 1837, and died at M/:Idling (near
Vienna) on 5 October 1917. His collection of printed books came to the monas-
tery library after his death, but nothing ia known of any collection of Syriac
manuscripts (the only Syriac manuscript in the Library of Heiligenkreuz, a
Pentateuch, was left by Father Nivard SchIOgI).
For another of Neumann's Syriac manuscripts, see Parrologio Syriaca, III
(Liber Giaduum), p. viii.
• Did all the Ambroaian fragments once belong to Neumann? For other Milan
fI1lgIJlents whose Sinai origin is now known, see Draguet, 'Fragments de
I'Ambrosienne de Milan a restituer aux msII syriaques du Sinai 46 et 16', in
Biblical and PatristicaI Studies in Menwry of R. P. Casey (1963), pp. 16']-78 (the
missing folio between Milan A 296 inf., f. 179 and f. 180 (= part of Sinai
syr. 16) survives as Mingana 1Iyr. 641); cpo also de HaIleux, 'Un nouveau frag-
ment du manuacrit sinaitique de Martyrius-Sahdona', Le Muston, !xxiii (1c}60).
pp. 33-8 (two further leaves of this manuscript are preserved 118 Mingana
ayr. 650; f. 2 is the beginning of the seventh gathering, and this incidentally
shows that the order of the fragments at the beginning of the work should be:
Milan ff. 13t42+Strasbourg f. 13s+Mingana ff. 1-2+1acuna (2 folis) + Milan
ff. 133-6+f. 132+f. 131+Strasbourg f. I onwards (not: Milan f. 136+lscuna
+ff. 131-2+lacuna+Straabourg f. I, as in de Halleux's edition (C.S.C.O.,
Scriptoru Syri 86/7»; the edition and translation of the Mingana fragment is
to appear in Le Muston, !xxxi (1968).