The “Praise of the Summit of Mount Sinai”: Some Notes on the Manuscripts

1. The “Praise of the Summit of Mount Sinai” is an anonymous Christian Arabic text that has been preserved in several manuscripts dating from the 9th and 10th centuries CE. It presumably originated at that time or somewhat earlier within the Arabic-speaking community of the Sinai Monastery. Its function must be understood in the context of the “Feast of the Holy Summit” (ἡ ἑορτὴ τῆς ἁγίας κορυφῆς, hē heortē tēs hagias koruphēs), which Anastasius of Sinai (fl. 7th c. CE) already mentions in his Tales of the Sinai Fathers.¹ André Binggeli proposed that this feast commemorates the dedication of the church on the summit of Mount Sinai.² It is mentioned in Georgian liturgical calendars as the “Feast of the Dedication of the Church of Mount Sinai” (სატფური ეკლესიისაჲ მთასა სინასა, sat’puri eklesiisaj mtasa Sinasa)³ – the Arabic equivalent of სატფური in the “Praise” is ʿīd al-taǧdīd. According to the Georgian calenders, it was celebrated on 3 October.

2. The Arabic “Praise” might have been delivered at the summit itself on that occasion originally. We also have another, later Arabic text that appears to have served the same purpose (it’s simply called “For the Dedication of the Holy Summit, the Church of the Hallowed Mount Sinai” [Li-taǧdīd al-ǧumǧuma al-muqaddasa kanīsat ǧabal Ṭūr Sīnā]⁴). In my view, these texts are interesting pieces of “hagiogeography”.⁵ Similar to other texts relating to the monastic tradition at Mount Sinai, particularly Jacob of Serugh’s (d. 521 CE) Letter to the Monks of Mount Sinai, or Hymns 19 and 20 on Julian Saba ascribed to Ephrem the Syrian (d. 373 CE),⁶ the text christianises the mountainscape of the Old Testament where God revealed himself to Moses. It employs extensive typological interpretation, establishing various connections between the Old and New Testaments, including references to biblical mountain sites. At the same time, the author describes the summit of Mount Sinai as a place of proximity to God, of divine vision and spiritual renewal, serving also as an admonition to the monks who are addressed repeatedly throughout the text: “Now you know, brothers, what place it is that you have been straining and sweating to reach”, as it says in one place.⁷ For now, I do not wish to say any more about the content of the text, to which I will probably devote a separate post. In this post, I want to make a few notes regarding its manuscript witnesses and especially their scribal context.

3. Until now, only two parchment manuscripts containing the text were known: Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 542 and Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. NF M1.⁸ I recently came across two further paper manuscripts, which are slightly younger but still date from the 10th century CE. I was able to view the parchment manuscripts at St Catherine’s Monastery in 2017. But it was a trip I made in February of this year that has now led me to engage more closely with the text. Three months ago, I visited the Cadbury Research Library in Birmingham, which houses the Mingana Collection – the collection containing the largest number of dispersed manuscripts from Sinai. I need to write about this visit in more detail soon. In any case, I naturally came across a number of new and interesting things. These included the table of contents (or tafsīr) of a Sinaitic manuscript, which is found in Birmingham, Cadbury Research Library, Mingana Collection, Chr. Ar. 243 [no. 193].⁹ The table of contents caught my interest for two reasons. Firstly, it bears a strong resemblance to several other tables of contents in the Mingana Collection, which belong to Christian Arabic manuscripts written in the 9th and 10th centuries CE at the Sinai Monastery itself (these tables of contents have been restored and date from a few centuries later).¹⁰ Secondly, the first text listed is the “Praise”, referred to here as the “Praise of God’s Holy Mountain” (Madḥat ǧabal Allāh al-muqaddas). My first goal was to determine to which Sinaitic manuscript this table of contents belongs.

4. In his description of the fragment, Mingana lists the texts included in the table of contents, but he does not mention the first text. Nevertheless, this was still helpful for identifying the parent codex as Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 508. Curiously, Aziz S. Atiya also does not mention in his Handlist that the manuscript contains the “Praise”.¹¹ The reason for this is that the beginning of the manuscript is missing and our text is acephalous. What Atiya also leaves unmentioned is that the first text, i.e. the “Praise” (ff. 1r-8v), actually constitutes a different production unit, if not a different codicological unit. Sinai ar. 508.1 and 508.2 were written by two distinctly different hands. Both, however, date to the 10th century CE, probably the second half. This is also what the writing support suggests. The restored table of contents, dating from the 12th century CE at the earliest, documents that both units were already part of the same manuscript at that time. It probably also shows that the beginning of the first text was still intact, since the restorers generally used the rubricated titles in the manuscript as a guide. Compared with the text in the other manuscript copies, approximately two folios are missing at the beginning of the “Praise” in this manuscript. It’s not entirely unlikely that they may still exist somewhere.

5. The second paper manuscript is Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 513. Here, the “Praise” is found on ff. 127r-141v. I used this manuscript to produce an initial transcript, which I used as an aid for transcribing the text from the oldest manuscript witness Sinai ar. 542. Sinai ar. 513 can be dated more precisely than Sinai ar. 508, because we know its scribe. He was a monk named Pachomius (Fāḫūm), who was active at the Sinai Monastery during the second half of the 10th century and perhaps even into the early 11th century CE. This Pachomius seems to have held the office of ḫāzin at the monastery, which might be translated here as “sacristarian” or “treasurer”.¹² We know this from the manuscript Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 436, which was also written by Pachomius and in which he not only left a colophon (f. 42v), but in which also a Sinaitic bishop named Solomon (10th–11th century) left a note about Pachomius. Mark Swanson discussed the details of the note in an article about bishop Solomon.¹³ Based on his analysis of several such notes, he concludes that Solomon’s tenure lasted from 982 to 1002 CE. Sinai ar. 436 was produced during this period. Although we do not know whether this was before the year 1000 CE, it is not unlikely. The same is true for Sinai ar. 513. It is also noteworthy what Swanson says about the office of the ḫāzin: “It may correspond to Greek skevophylax. The khāzin would be charge of the khizāna – which may well be identical with or closely related to what is here called the muwāsaṭa.”¹⁴ Both terms, khizāna (or ḫizāna ) and muwāsaṭa, would refer to a place within the monastery where in the 10th and 11th centuries CE manuscripts were at least kept, if not copied.

6. What I find fascinating about Pachomius and his manuscripts¹⁵ is the fact that this scribe evidently carried on the legacy of the Sinaitic workshop led by Thomas of Fustat. Thomas is the copyist of Sin. ar. 542, the oldest extant manuscript of the “Praise”. Besides the “Praise”, there are numerous other texts that the manuscripts of Thomas and Pachomius have in common. This topic requires further detailed investigation, but it seems to me to support Swanson’s theory that Pachomius held a position that put him in charge of manuscripts. This also appears to have included creative work with the manuscripts of his predecessors, which he used to produce his own new compilations of texts. However, even within Thomas’s workshop, we can see that texts have been transmitted in more than one version, which may also mean that they were revised within this workshop. The “Praise” could again be an example of this. We can see that Sin. ar. 542 contains a different version from the other three textual witnesses. One of the latter, Sin. ar. NF M1, was partly copied by Thomas as well. The “Praise”, however, is written in a different hand by a scribe named Isaac (Isḥāq). The text, in fact, follows right after a scribal note by Isaac in which he reveals his name (f. 62v).¹⁶ The exact relationship between these two versions is not entirely straightforward to determine, but my impression is that version B (Sin. ar. NF M1, Sin. ar. 508, Sin. ar. 513) is a revision of version A (Sin. ar. 542).

7. The two oldest manuscripts, Sin. ar. 542 and Sin. ar. NF M1, appear to have served the same purpose. They share not only the “Praise”, but also a few other texts that are directly linked to the monastic tradition of the Sinai.¹⁷ Binggeli has devoted a separate study to Sin. ar. 542 and its Sinai-related texts, which is also so far the only examination of the “Praise” in the literature.¹⁸ Picking up on Binggeli, I recently referred to the two manuscripts as “Sinai Hagiography I” (Sin. ar. 542) and “Sinai Hagiography II” (Sin. ar. NF M1) in a study on Thomas of Fustat.¹⁹ This function also seems to me to be reflected in a kind of title found in Sin. ar. 542 at the beginning of the manuscript, directly above the text of the “Praise”: Book of the Fathers on Mount Sinai (muṣḥaf al-abbāhāt bi-Ṭūr Sīnā). Even though these manuscripts share the same context of production and the same function, this does not mean that the transmitted texts maintained a stable form. With respect to the “Praise”, Sin. ar. NF M1 contains numerous variants and additions compared to Sin. ar. 542. Almost all of these are also found in Sin. ar. 513. Although I have not yet produced a stemma, as I have not yet fully collated all the manuscripts, the evidence so far suggests that Sin. ar. 508 and Sin. ar. 513 can be traced back to Sin. ar. NF M1. However, since Sin. ar. NF M1 shares a few readings with Sin. ar. 542 against Sin. ar. 513, the two later manuscripts (Sin. ar. 508 and 513) may also have been based on an intermediary model. It seems likely that the text of Sin. ar. NF M1 is a revision based on Sin. ar. 542, as both manuscripts were produced in the same workshop. However, it may be that the original revision, which served as the basis for Sin. ar. NF M1, no longer exists, meaning that we must assume there is alo an intermediate manuscript between Sin. ar. 542 and Sin. ar. NF M1.

1. For the Greek text, see François Nau, “Le texte grec des récits du moine Anastase sur les saintes pères du Sinaï“, Oriens Christianus, 2/1 (1902), pp. 58-89; idem, “Le texte grec des récits utiles à l`âme d’Anastase (le Sinaïte)“, Oriens Christianus, 3/1 (1903), pp. 56-90. For a French translation, see François Nau, “Les récits inédtis du moine Anastase : contribution à l’histoire du Sinaï au commencement du VII^e siècle“, Revue de l’Institute Catholique de Paris, 1-2 (1902), pp. 1-151. For a more recent English translation, based on a new edition of the Greek text prepared by Binggeli, see Daniel F. Caner, History and Hagiography from Late Antique Sinai, Translated Texts for Historians, 53 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2010), pp. 172-199. The feast is mentioned in Nau’s tale XXXVI. [↩]
2. See Caner, History, p. 178, n. 37; see also André Binggeli, “L’hagiographie du Sinaï en arabe d’après un recueil du IX^e siècle (Sinaï arabe 542)”, Parole de l’Orient, 32 (2007), pp. 163-180, at p. 167. [↩]
3. Gérard Garitte, Le Calendrier palestino-géorgien du Sinaiticus 34 (X^e siècle), Studia Hagiographica, 30 (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1958), p. 95; see also p. 348 where Garitte proposes that the feast commemorates the dedication of the principle church within the monastery; Michael Tarchnischvili, Le Grand Lectionnaire de l’Église de Jérusalem (Ve-VIIIe siècle), 2 vols, CSCO 204-205, Iber. 13-14 (Louvain: Secrétariat Général du CorpusSCO, 1960), 2:42. [↩]
4. This text is found in Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 533, ff. 189v-192v. Atiya dates the manuscript to the 13th cenury; see Aziz S. Atiya, The Arabic Manuscripts of Mount Sinai: A hand-list of the Arabic manuscripts and scrolls microfilmed at the library of the Monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1955), p. 20. See also Binggeli, “L’hagiographie”, p. 169, n. 15. According to Binggeli, this second text “présente des dévelopments similaires et probablement inspirés de notre texte”, i.e. the “Praise”. [↩]
5. I am grateful to Virginia Burrus for this term, which she uses in her recently published book Earthquakes and Gardens: Saint Hilarion’s Cyprus (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2026); I became aware of the term through the following review article by Midori Hartman, “Building a Garden Nest: Burrus’ Hagiogeography of Jerome’s Hilarion”, Ancient Jew Review (13 April 2026), URL: https://www.ancientjewreview.com/read/2026/4/9/building-a-garden-nest-burruss-hagiogeography-of-jeromes-hilarion. [↩]
6. These text are included in Caner, History, pp. 203-210 and 242-245; ET by Kevin van Bladel. Hymn 14 also speaks of Julian Saba’s construction of chapel on the summit of Mount Sinai; cf. Theodoret of Cyrrhus, A History of the Monks of Syria, tr. by R.M. Price (Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 1985), p. 35, n. 10. I’m currently working on an edition of the early Arabic translation of Jacob of Serugh’s Epistle VII, as it is found in the manuscript Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 460. This manuscripts comes from the same scribal context as the two older manuscript witnesses of the “Praise”. [↩]
7. Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 542, f. 5v:9-10: فالان علمتم ياخوه لمذا سعيتم وعرقتم الى اى موضع وصلتم. [↩]
8. See Binggeli, “L’hagiographie”, which is dedicated to Sinai ar. 542; see, however, also ibid., p. 178, n. 44: “Ainsi le Sinai ar. M1 est un manuscrit hagiographique et homilétique copié au Mont Sinaï par un certain Isḥāq qui offre des ressemblances frappantes avec le Sinai ar. 542. On y retrouve le Martyre des moines du Sinaï et Raïthou, un ‘Panégyrique de la sainte montagne de Dieu, le Mont Sinaï’ (le même texte?), et un ‘Récit sur la naissance de Moïse'”. [↩]
9. See Alphonse Mingana, Catalogue of the Mingana Collection of Manuscripts Now in the Possession of the Trustees of the Woodbrooke Settlement, Selly Oak, Birmingham, vol. III: Additional Christian Arabic and Syriac Manuscripts, Woodbrooke Catalogues, III (Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons, Ltd., 1939), p. 32 [↩]
10. See Peter Tarras, “Building a Christian Arabic Library at Mount Sinai: The Scribe Thomas of Fusṭāṭ and the Manuscripts of His Workshop”, in: Adrian Pirtea (ed.), Monastic Literature in Early Islamic Palestine and Sinai: Manuscripts, Scribes, Translators, Authors, and Later Readers = COMSt Bulletin, 11/1–2 (2025 [2026]), pp. 15–57, esp. at pp. 33-34. [↩]
11. See Atiya, Handlist, p. 18. [↩]
12. See Mark N. Swanson, “Solomon, Bishop of Mount Sinai (Late Tenth Century AD)”, in: Rifaat Ebied, Herman Teule (eds), Studies on the Christian Arabic Heritage in Honour of Father Prof. Dr. Samir Khalil Samir S.I. at the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, Eastern Christian Studies, 5 (Leuven, Paris, Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2004), pp. 91-111, at p. 101, n. 48. See also Georg Graf, Verzeichnis arabischer christlicher Termini, 2nd ed., CSCO, 147, Subsidia, 8 (Louvain: Imprimerie Orientale L. Durbecq, 1954), p. 42, s.v. حزن. [↩]
13. Swanson, “Solomon”. [↩]
14. Swanson, “Solomon”, p.101, n. 48. [↩]
15. So far, I have been able to identify the following manuscripts copied by Pachomius: Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 436; Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 513; Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 520; Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 545; Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. NF X17; Birmingham, Cadbury Research Library, Mingana Collection, Chr. Ar. Add. 230. [↩]
16. For a discussion of this note, see Tarras, “Christian Arabic Library”, pp. 24-25. [↩]
17. See Binggeli, “L’hagiographie du Sinaï”; Tarras, “Christian Arabic Library”, pp. 41-43. [↩]
18. See Binggeli, “L’hagiographie du Sinaï”, pp. 166-168. [↩]
19. Tarras, “Christian Arabic Library”, p. 28. [↩]

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