Originally Posted by WRIGHT

The documents which these volumes contain, in text and translation, are the following:—

1. The history of S. John at Ephesus, taken from two vellum manuscripts, the one of the vith cent., the other of the ixth. The former is in the Imperial Public Library of St. Petersburg, the latter in the British Museum.1. The St. Petersburg manuscript consists of 142 leaves, written in a fine, regular Estrangela, in double columns. The quires were originally signed with both letters and arithmetical figures. Fol. 54, which is misplaced, is a later addition, of about the xith cent., in a cursive hand. [Title, Syriac] The contents are:—The Doctrine of Addai at Edessa, [Title, Syriac] fol. 1 b (Add. 14,644, fol. 1 a); the Doctrine of Simon Peter at Rome, [Title, Syriac] fol. 33 a (Add. 14,644, fol. 15 b); the History of S. John at Ephesus, fol. 38 b; the Invention of the holy Cross by the empress Helene, fol. 74 b, (Add. 14,644, fol. 18 b);

Originally Posted by WRIGHT

the Martyrdom of Judas, who became bishop of Jerusalem by the name of Cyriacus, fol. 84 b (Add. 14,644, |viii fol. 23 b); the History of the eight Youths of Ephesus, fol. 92 a (Add. 12,160, fol. 147 a, and elsewhere); the Life of Gregory Thaumaturgus, bishop of Neo-Caesarea, fol. 101 a (Add. 14,648, fol. 125 a); and the Life of Basil of Caesarea by Amphilochius of Iconium, fol. 117 a (Add. 12,174, fol. 125 a). The volume belonged to the convent of S. Mary Deipara in the desert of Scete, according to the note on fol. 142 b: [Syriac] This book, and three others from the same convent (the two Books of Samuel and the Pauline Epistles, both according to the Peshīţtā version, and the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, dated A.D. 462), were withheld by a Greek named Pacho from the Trustees of the British Museum, who had made use of his services in the acquisition of the Nitrian collection, and were sold by him, in 1852, to the Imperial Public Library of St. Petersburg, for the sum of 2500 silver rubles. They have been carefully described by Professor Dr. Dorn in the "Melanges Asiatiques," t. ii., p. 195. I am indebted for the use of this manuscript, —which would have given invaluable aid to Dr. Cureton in the publication of his " Ancient Syriac Documents" (compare my Catalogue of Syriac MSS. in the British Museum, part iii., p. 1083, no. DCCCCXXXVI.)-—to the liberality of the Imperial Government of Russia, which is always ready to place its scientific treasures at the disposal of scholars of every nation. To his Excellency M. Deljanoff, the Director of the Imperial Public Library, my warmest thanks are due for the promptitude |ix with which he acceded to my application for the loan both of this volume and of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. Would that the management of all similar institutions were conducted on equally liberal principles!

2. Of the manuscript in the British Museum, Add. 17,192, it is unnecessary to give a detailed description in this place, as I have described it minutely in my Catalogue, part ii., p. 778, no. DCCLXXXIX. It is of the ixth cent, and was one of the 250 volumes, which were collected and conveyed by the abbat Moses of Nisibis to the convent of S. Mary Deipara in the year 1243, A.D. 932.

These Acts, which are obviously translated from the Greek, being of comparatively late date, and to all appearance destitute of any historical basis, are chiefly valuable from the linguistic point of view.

The fact of Eusebius of Cæsarea being named
as the author (p. 3), combined with the mention
of "Urhāi of the Parthians" at p. 54, suffices, I think,
to show that the work was written after the story of the conversion of Abgar, king of Edessa, by Addai, had become generally known, that is to say, after the publication of Eusebius's Ecclesias�*tical History, or about the middle of the fourth century. The Greek original, however, is, so far as I am aware, unpublished, if indeed it be still extant.