Beinecke MS 238                                                     Byzantium, s. XVI
Anastasius of Sinai, et al., Passages on Asceticism (in Greek)

     1. ff. 1r-32r     [Greek]. [Greek]. ff. 32v-33v ruled, but blank.

          Anonymous, Excerpts on Asceticism, drawn from John Chrysostom,
     Basil, Isidore, Theodoretus, Maximus, Nilus and others; no text of this
     collection has yet been published.

     2. ff. 34r-42v     [Greek]. [Greek].

          Philotheus, patriarch of Constantinople, De mandatis D. N. Jesu
     Christi sermo; PG 154. 729-41. No loss of text, but the treatise was
     left without the final section by the scribe and divided into four
     parts, each with a title.

     3. ff. 43r-55v     [Greek]. [Greek]. [text of prologue begins f. 55r,
     after an explanatory note:] [Greek]...[Greek].

          Symeon Euchaita, excerpts from Epistola ad monachum quendam; no
     text has yet been published.

     4. ff. 55v-68v    [Greek]. [Greek].

          Petrus Damascenus, Excerpta ascetica; no text has yet been
     published.

     5. ff. 68v-73v     [Greek]. [Greek].

          Marcus Eremita, Consultatio intellectus cum sua ipsius anima; PG
     65.1104-09.

     6. ff. 74r-86v     [Greek]  [sic] [Greek]// Text left incomplete in the
     middle of a page; ff. 87r-89v blank, except that on f. 87r the scribe
     began to copy the next text, then stopped abruptly.

          Anonymous, Excerpta e Gerontico; text not included in published
     collections.

     7. ff. 90r-128v     [Greek]. [text of question 79 begins:] [Greek].

          Anastasius of Sinai, Quaestiones (selections); PG 89. 311-823.

     8. ff. 129r-137v    [title:] [Greek]. [text:] [Greek].

          Marcus Eremita, Quaestiones de baptismo; PG 65. 985-1028.

     9. ff. 137v-139r    [Greek]. [Greek].

          Anonymous, Excerptum de patientia; text not included in published
     collections.

     10. ff. 139r-140v    [Greek] [sic] [Greek]. [Greek].

          Anastasius of Sinai, Fidei notitia; J. B. Pitra, Juris
     ecclesiastici Graecorum Historia et Monumenta (Rome, 1864-68) v. 2, pp.
     271-74. The text of MS 238 diverges substantially from the printed
     text.

     11. ff. 140v-170r    [Greek]. [Greek]. [Greek]. [Colophon:] [Greek].

          Anonymous, Excerpta et Quaestiones Asceticae from Basil,
     Athanasius, Anastasius of Sinai, Maximus the Confessor, and others; no
     text of this collection has apparently been published.

          Paper (polished, except for ff. 129-136; unidentified watermarks:
     anchor in circle), ff. i (early parchment) + 170 + i (contemporary
     parchment), 154 x 103 (119 x 77) mm. Written in 18 long lines; double
     vertical bounding lines with an additional horizontal ruling in upper
     and lower margins; ruled in hard point.
          The volume is too closely bound to collate. Catchwords for all
     folios, verso and recto, are located directly below the written space
     to the right.
          Written by a single scribe who signed himself "Callistus the holy
     deacon" (perhaps to be identified with Vogel and Gardthausen, p. 227,
     a. 1523; see art. 11 for colophon).
          Simple headpieces on ff. 1r, 34r, 58r, 60v, 74r. Initials and
     headings, in red, for each new passage. Crudely drawn angel hovers over
     top of initial, f. 34r; birds perch on others. Folios 129-136 are not
     rubricated.
          Binding: Date? Pastedowns sewn with bookblock. Three chain-
     stitched supports. Endbands attached to the square-edged, flush wooden
     boards. Loops of thread around the edges of the quires at head and
     tail. The spine is square and lined all along with vellum extending
     onto the inside of the boards and there seem to be lining strips
     extending on the outside of the boards also. Two pin holes with stubs
     of iron pins in them in the edges of the upper board and two holes for
     each strap on the lower. Rebacked. Covered with 13th-century Greek
     manuscript fragment containing musical notation, with front flyleaf
     from the same manuscript, and back flyleaf from a 12th century Greek
     liturgical text (all badly rubbed).

          Written in Byzantium in the 16th century. A Greek note (19th
     century?) on f. 1r states that it came from the monastery of Mt.
     Lebanon. Ownership inscription, in Latin on f. 169v, has been crossed
     out by a later hand; only the date April 1623 is legible. The notation
     "c. v. 14." appears inside front cover. Acquired in 1861 by Sir Thomas
     Phillipps (no. 15867, on spine) from Puttick. Purchased from Laurence
     Witten with funds from the Jacob Ziskind Charitable Trust in 1957 (MS
     27).

     Bibliography: Faye and Bond, pp. 44-45, no. 238. 
	     Ziskind Catalogue, p. 48.

     Barbara A. Shailor