DESCRIPTION OF THE CODICES.

The codices described below belong either to the British Museum (B.M.) or to the Bodleian Library (B.L.).
Since all the B.M. codices which I have used in compiling this book are on parchment, except for No. 17238 which is on paper, it suffices to have mentioned this fact once.

I.

This codex, in octavo format, written in ancient letters and with a neat hand by the scribe Julian of Edessa (as appears from the note placed at the foot of the book), contains only the Hymns (madrashe hymns/didactic poems) of St. Ephrem, whose name is read repeatedly in the upper margin of the pages in a clear and definite mention. This marginal page title was made by the first hand. At the end of the book, we are informed that it was completed in the year 830 of the Apamean Era. If this era is the same as that of the Seleucids, it brings us to A.D. 519. Now, this venerable antiquity of our codex is greatly confirmed if we compare it with codex No. 12156, which, just like ours, was produced in that elegant and peculiar Edessene script in A.D. 562. Both codices are very sparse with points referring to vocalization or diacritical marks in Syriac script, worked out with the most accurate diligence, and they recall that fertile school of librarians or scribes that flourished at Edessa, which, once you have known it, it is difficult not to recognize immediately any work that originated from it.