...devoid of errors: nevertheless, some vowels were lost under the press or changed. The list of addenda and corrigenda which is found at the end of the work exhibits all those errors, even the slightest ones, as well as some corrections by which we had to chastise the translation. Therefore, I earnestly ask benevolent readers who will have this volume III of the Patrologia Syriaca in hand that they always look at this list.

Given in the village of Pusztazámor in Hungary, Fehér county, on the feast of Saints Cyril and Methodius, 15 July A.D. 1926.

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PREFACE

A small horizontal printer's ornament with a central diamond and scrolls.

CHAPTER ONE

ON THE MANUSCRIPTS OF THE BOOK OF STEPS

I. Description of the Syriac manuscript no. 201 of the Paris National Library, eleven manuscripts of the British Museum, the unique manuscript of Professor Neumann, also Syriac manuscript CXXIII of the Vatican Library, and the manuscript of His Beatitude Patriarch Rahmani. — II. Method of editing the books. — III. Testimony of the manuscripts concerning the author of the work. — IV. On that monk Eusebius, who in manuscript Add. British Museum 17,193 fol. 3 is established as the author of the work. — V. On Symmachus, to whom 'Abdišô' attributes Discourse XIX of the Book of Steps.

1. The Syriac manuscript of the Paris National Library 201, 12th century, paper, 281 folios in octavo in two columns, written in a neat and fairly accurate Jacobite cursive script Zotenberg, Catalogue of Syriac and Sabean Manuscripts of the National Library, Paris, 1874, p. 150. It contains: a) The work of Philoxenus of Mabbug, which is inscribed: On Christian Life and Perfection Ed. Budge under the title The Discourses of Philoxenus, London, 1894, folios 1–172. b) The Book of Steps ktābā d-mesqātā Book of Steps, which is now to be edited by us, folios 172b–281a. Many folios of the manuscript have been eaten by worms, while the last three or four have been exposed too long to the vicissitudes of rain or air, as it seems, and are very worn toward the lateral margin. Hence it happens that a notable part of the column adjacent to the edge of the margin can scarcely be read anymore; the manuscript is otherwise mutilated; almost two folios seem to have been lost toward the end.

The part of the manuscript exhibiting the Book of Steps contains:

1. A preface prefixed to the work by a certain scribe discussing the author of the Book, whose purpose is to prove that he was one of the last disciples of the Apostles and a prophet, a Syrian by nation.

2. The final discourse, XXXI, by which the Scribe tries to prove what he asserted about the person of the "Blessed one" in the aforementioned preface He wrongly numbers this discourse $α$ as XXX; according to the testimony of manuscript R, the end is Discourse XXX.