Black Matthew | Akateeminen Kirjakauppa

First published in 1954, the manuscript of this book of hours was bought in Cairo in 1906 for the Berlin State Library from a Syrian dealer. It may have come from the library of the Convent of St Catherine from Mount Sinai. It is a complete Malkite Horologion: a translation for the most part of a Horologion of the Greek Orthodox Church into Palestinian Syriac, the dialect of Amaric employed in their scriptures and services by the Malkites, a Syrian sect of the Orthodox Church. It is rich in Psalm texts, most of which are new to the Palestinian Syricac Bible. Internal evidence points to Palestine and perhaps to Jerusalem as the ultimate provenance of the text.