Digitized Manuscripts: Faceted Search

About This Table

This table searches all collections of Syriac and Garshuni manuscripts that are freely available online by key terms. Click any of the categorized menu items to narrow down your search. If you would like to sort the manuscripts by shelf-mark or date, or search by general keyword, see our other table here, which includes all the same manuscript data.

*The Approximate Date column is derived from the best available information for the manuscript. This is not asserted as a scholarly position on the dating of the manuscript. Instead, it is merely used here for the convenience of being able to sort all manuscripts by numerical date. The user should keep in mind that there may be considerable debate over the precise dating of the manuscript and should consult the manuscript repository and relevant scholarly literature for details.

Manuscript Name / Shelf Mark / Project Number Approximate Date Language The main body text Link to Digitized Manuscript
Vat. sir. 189 1,000 CE Syriac

See entry in Assemani

  • Binding
  • f. 1r-104v Ascetical Discourses
  • Binding

Vat. sir. 544 1,712 CE Armenian (in Syriac Script), Syriac
  • Binding
  • f. 1r-4v Various pieces in diverse hands
  • f. 5r-9r Ba'utha of Mar Ephrem
  • f. 9v-12v Ba'utha of Jacob of Sarug (Armenian in Syriac Script)
  • f. 13r-14v Prayers
  • f. 15r-17v Excerpts form Jacob of Sarug and Mar Ephrem
  • f. 17v-19v Verses for the celebrations before the Gospel
  • f. 19v-20v Ba'utha of Jacob of Sarug
  • f. 20v-24v Table of incipits
  • f. 25r-33v Ba'utha of Jacob of Sarug
  • f. 34r-34v Prayer
  • f. 34v-96r Shhimo
  • f. 96r-107r Prayers for Various Circumstances
  • f. 107r-145v Various prayers and gospel pericopes (In another hand)
  • f. 146r-147v Pages of another manuscript wiith ascetic content
  • Binding

Mardin, Turkey Chaldean Cathedral (CCM 00122) 1,557 CE Syriac

See Scher's note on Diyarbakir 51

  • f. 2v-192v Service for the novice monks

Sachau 165; Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin 201 1,300 CE Syriac

See entry for Sachau 165

  • Lives and sayings for famous ascetics and church Fathers
    • f. 1-8v Biographical notes about church fathers and Citations of their works
    • f. 8v, 13-25 fragments of a writing about the monastic call
    • f. 9r-9v, 17 fragments of a legend of St. Pior (Identified with Lausaic history ch. 87)
    • f. 9v-12v Admonition of the Apostle Peter
    • f. 12v-16v From the legend of Abba Bishoi about the Isaac who became a Jew
    • f. 16v-18v part of the life of Alexander of Rome
    • f. 18r-19r Patristic citations
    • f. 19r-22r Conversation between teachers and students
    • f. 23r-26v Legends
    • f. 27r-32v Biographical notes about the prophets of the Old Testament
    • f. 32v-36v Notes on the New Testament

Sachau 302; Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin 27 600 CE Syriac

See entry for Sachau 27

  • f. 1-9r Selections of the work of Mark the Monk (Includes the tractate against the Melchizedekians)
  • f. 9r-11v Another work of Mark the Monk, on Malchus
  • f. 11v-13v Letter of St. Anthony to the monks of all the East
  • f. 13v-16r Letter of John of Thebes
  • f. 16r-19v Letter of Jacob the Seer
  • f. 19v-21v Memra of John Chrysostom on Repentance
  • f. 21v-22r Ephrem Syrus, from the Memra against Bardaisan
  • f. 22r-29v Evagrius Ponticus, Teaching and correction for the solitary brothers in the wilderness
  • f. 30r-41v Evagrius Ponticus, On the perfection of Disciplines
  • f. 41v-42v Evagrius Ponticus, Asceticon
  • f. 42v-54v Evagrius Ponticus, Antirhetikos

Baghdad; Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon (CPB 00121) 1,707 CE Syriac

Gospels edited here: Īšōʻdad deÌ Merv, The Commentaries of Isho'dad of Merv, Bishop of Ḥadatha (c.850 A.D.) (ed. M. Gibson, Cambridge, 1911). [Volume 1] [Volume 2] [Volume 3]

  • f. 3r-231v Isho'dad of Merv, Commentaries
    • f. 3r-161v Gospels
    • f. 161v-183r Acts
    • f. 183r-186r Pauline Epistles
  • f. 233v-242v Excerpt from the Book of the Solitaries

Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (SyrHT 105) Unknown Syriac
  • On the Ascetic Life? (belongs with n. 374a and is under glass with SyrHT 103 and 104)

Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (C5: n149-n158, n160-n166) 1,888 CE Sogdian, Syriac
  • John
  • Matthew
  • Luke and Matthew
  • On the Ascetic Life
  • Luke
  • Luke and John
  • Matthew and John

*Note that this link will take you to the link for all 11 folios rather than directly to a manuscript.
Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (C6: n167-n174) Unknown Sogdian, Syriac
  • Story of Mar Eugene (Awgen)
  • On the Ascetic Life
  • Unidentified text
  • Martyrdom of St. Tarbo 

Harvard MS Syr 42 1,400 CE Syriac

Catalog Entry

  • Homilies of John Saba (ff. 1r-30v)
  • Chapter of knowledge by John Saba (30v-33r)
  • Fifty-one letters of John Saba (33r-67v)
  • Chapters of knowledge, nos. 2-6 (67v-86r)
  • Maxims by John bar Penkaye (86r-87v)
  • Discourse on What is man, by John bar Penkaye (87r-93v)
  • "Letters not found in the monastery copy" (93v-94v)
  • Selected sayings of Saba (94v-96r)
  • Short section by Bar Penkaye (96r-v)
  • Madrashe by the saint (96v-97v)
  • Memra on the trisagion by John Bar Penkaye (98r-101v)
  • Life of John bar Penkaye (101v-102v)
  • Selections from Evagrius, Gregory the Monk, Simeon the Monk, Basil, Philoxenus and John Chrysostom (102v-116v)
  • Apocalypse of Daniel (117r-122v)
  • Discourse of John of Mount Sinai on repentance (122v-125r), with a lacuna on f. 124v
  • unidentified memre (125r-v).

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