Arsani Al Misri

              (CE:239a-239b)
ARSANI AL-MISRI, a monk at the monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai in 1396. On Thursday, 7 June 1396, he finished copying a liturgical manuscript (Sinai Arabic 220) of 215 folios, commissioned by another monk, Anba Niqula al-Jaljuli. Folios 106 to 201 were replaced and recopied at a later date by another hand.

This manuscript contains: a collection of troparia (fols. 1r-105r); a series of prayers (fols. 106r-45r); a long canon of praise to the
Virgin (fols. 146r-68r); another series of prayers (fols. 168v-83v); part of a lectionary, with Epistles and Gospels (fols. 186r-200v); and
more prayers (fols. 202r-207r). Here we find the colophon, dated 1396 (fo. 207r-207v).

Arsani was a Melchite from Cairo. He was a good mathematician. In 1402 he composed computation tables giving the dates for the feast of Easter and the beginning of Lent, from the year 6910 of Adam to 6991/A.D. 1402-1483. He added these tables to the manuscript he had copied, on fols. 208r-15v.

Arsani al-Misri should not be confused with another Arsani, monk of Sinai, who copied Sinai Arabic 117. The latter Arsani was a priest and hermit (habis), who completed his manuscript on 31 December 1203.
KHALIL SAMIR, S.J.