Grigory Kessel

A Syriac Medical Kunnāšā of Īšōʿ bar ʿAlī (9th c.): First Soundings’

A little-known thirteenth-century manuscript preserved in Damascus contains by far the largest Syriac medical work that has survived till today. Despite the missing beginning, a preliminary study of the text allows us to argue that it is the medical handbook (entitled Kunnāšā) of Īšōʿ bar ʿAlī, a ninth-century physician and student of Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq. The seven books of the handbook appear to follow the model of Paul of Aegina’s Pragmateia both in composition and content. The actual significance of the handbook in the history of Syriac and Arabic medicine is yet to be assessed, but there can be no doubt that it will be a pivotal source that illustrates the development of Syriac medicine during a period of four centuries at the moment when it was being translated to lay the foundations of the nascent medical tradition in Arabic.

A Syriac Four Gospel Book in Diyarbakır

The present study deals with codicological, textual and art historical features of the Gospel Book (Tetraevangelium) from the Syrian Orthodox Church Meryem Ana, Diyarbakir (Turkey) that has not been sufficiently known either to scholars of Syriac Christianity or art historians. Due to the lack of the colophon we are bereft of any positive information concerning its provenance and therefore only through comparative study one can contextualize the evidence that it provides. Our preliminary study demonstrates that palaeographical and codicological features of the manuscript allow to ascribe it to the early Syriac manuscript production. Its text represents the standard Syriac Gospel text of the Peshitta version. The text is accompanied by a primitive lectionary system that covers only the principal liturgical commemorations; that was however enriched at a later stage when the manuscript was used in the Syriac Orthodox milieu. The manuscript contains a miniature of Christ as well as decorated Canon tables that...

Collaborative research on the digital Syriac Galen Palimpsest

The purpose of this note is to generate a broader awareness in the scholarly community of the existence of an important privately owned palimpsest of which the undertext contains the Syriac translation (by Sergius of Rēs ʿAynā, 6th century) of Galens treatise On the mixtures and powers of simple drugs.

SYRIAN CHRISTIANITY: RECENT BIBLIOGRAPHY IN RUSSIAN

Иларион (АЛФЕЕВ), игум. [ныне еп.], Христос — победитель ада. Тема сошествия во ад в восточно-христианской традиции (Санкт-Петербург: Алетейя, 2001; 22005) (Византийская библиотека. Исследования). ISBN 5-89329-349-5. Pp. 151–170: «Гимнографическое творчество преподобного Ефрема Сирина» [Hymnography of Saint Ephrem the Syrian]; Pp. 385–404: «Нисивинские песнопения» — hymns 36, 41 [Songs of Nisibis 36, 41].