The Laughable Stories Collected by Mar Gregory John

INTRODUCTION. 'XXI
The MSS. of
The text here given is taken from the India Office
the work.
MS. No. 9, and from a copy of the "Laughable Stories"
in my own possession. The India Office MS. consists
of 444 paper leaves, measuring about Sin. by 6 V4 in.
From fol. i to fol. 59, and from fol. 194 to the end
the page is filled with two columns of 29 lines each;
but from fol. 60 to fol. 193 the page only contains one
column of 21 lines. The MS. is beautifully written in
a fine Nestorian hand, and vowels and diacritical points
have been added abundantly; two handwritings are
distinguishable in the MS. The "Laughable Stories" .
begin on fol. 351 b, col. i, and end on fol. 413^, col. 2;
they were copied by the famous Homo', the son of
Daniel the elder, of Al-kosh, A. Gr. 2024 = A. D.
1 71 2-1 3. My own copy is quite modern, but it was
made by a good scribe from an ancient manuscript; if
only he had followed his instructions and copied all the
stories instead of making a selection from them we
should probably have gained several additional, im-
portant textual variants. The MS. is in small quarto
and the page contains usually about 17 lines; the titles,
headings of chapters &c., are written in red, and at
the end are a number of exhortations, of a miscellaneous
character, to the reader to lead a godly, righteous, and
sober life, followed by some verses on the death of
the Patriarch John bar-Ma'dani, who died in 1263.
The "Laughable Stories" of Bar-Hebraeus are in^^^'^^^^^^
number about seven hundred and twenty-seven, and
these are divided into twenty chapters which vary in
length. They were compiled from a variety of sources
^ See Hoffmann, Opuscula Nestoriana, pp. I and XXIIL When
I was at Al-kosh in November, 1890, I talked with two men who
claimed descent from this famous Homo.