Author: Rev. prof. Alexander Treiger (Dalhousie University)
Keywords: patristics, Arab Christianity, manuscripts, saints’ lives
Abstract:
The third instalment in the “Unpublished Texts from the Arab Orthodox Tradition” series makes accessible a neglected document from the Orthodox Christian tradition in Arabic: The Paterikon of the Palestinian lavra of Mar Chariton. It includes an edition and an English translation of this text, which contains precious information about seven little-known ascetic fathers of this celebrated Palestinian monastery. Special attention is given to the ninth-century saint Eustratius of Mar Chariton, whose memory the Orthodox Church kept on 17 October. The Appendix includes an edition and an English translation of the Copto-Arabic version of the Vita of the same St. Eustratius. The purpose of the present article—the third instalment in the “Unpublished Texts from the Arab Orthodox Tradition” series—is to make accessible a neglected document from the Orthodox Christian tradition in Arabic: the Paterikon of the Palestinian “Old Lavra” (παλαιὰ λαύρα / al-sīq al-ʿatīq) of Mar Chariton (ca. 8 km south-south-east of Bethlehem, ca. 2.5 km northeast of the Palestinian village of Tuqūʿ/Tekoa; see Hirschfeld 2000; Pringle 1993-2009: II 221-224).2 This Paterikon—a brief account of the lives, sayings, and miracles of select monks of Mar Chariton, embedded in a much more extensive compilation of stories from John Moschus’ Spiritual Meadow, Anastasius of Sinai’s Narrationes, and the Apophthegmata Patrum—is preserved in Sinai ar. 563 (copied in 1257), fols. 22r-31v.
(Translation from English by Ștefan Voronca)
Pages: 136-160