volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

250 The Chronicle of Michael the Elder.
little scene had been carefully planned, and that no
intention to give a manuscript to the Museum had ever
existed. I examined the MSS. one by one, and found
that the gem of the collection was a massive copy of the
" Khudhra," which filled nearly 600 folios with two
columns of text to the page. The Khudhra is the great
" Circle " of services for all the Sundays of the year,
for Lent and the Fast of Nineveh, and it contains anthems,
responsories, hymns and collects specially arranged for
each service.^ It is a very old work, and the MS. before
me was a copy of the Recension of it made by Isho'yahbh
of Adiabene in the second half of the seventh
century ; there was then no copy of this important
book in the British Museum. After much talk the priest
agreed to sell me this manuscript,^ and after still more talk
we agreed upon a price. The following morning I opened
negotiations for the purchase of the other manuscripts,
and before I left Tall Kef I obtained them all. Among
these were a very good copy of the famous Syriac Dictionary
by Tsho bar Bahlui,' who flourished in the second
half of the tenth century,* and a copy of the great
Chronicle of Michael the Elder, first Abbot of the Monastery
of Bar-Sauma, near Melitene, and later Patriarch
(1166-99).' The latter is in Arabic' written in Syriac
letters, and is of such great importance that Monsieur
J. B. Chabot has published in facsimile a complete copy
of the whole work.
We left Tall Kef at 9 a.m. on December 2nd, and rode
in an easterly direction towards Jabal Maklub. The
day was bright and sunny, although ominous banks of
1 See Badger, Nestorians, ii, p. 22 ; Wright, Syriac Lit., p. 172
Assemani, B.O., iii, i, p. 139, and p. 144, col. 2 ; and my Book
of Governors, i, pp. x, xxxii, Ivi, Ix, and ii, pp. 155, 189, 296.
^ Its number in the British Museum is Oriental 4399.
' Now Brit. Mus. Oriental 4406.
* See Wright, Syr. Lit., p. 228, and Assemani, B.O., ii, p. 442;
iii, Part i, p. 200, col. 2 ; the work was edited by R. Duval and
published in Paris, 1888 ff.
' Now Brit. Mus. Oriental 4402.
° When Wright wrote his Syriac Literature he thought that the
Chronicle only existed in an Armenian version (see p. 252).