Arabic Fragments on the Pentateuch

Contents

Reading pages: 1–13 · 14–18 · 19–25 · 26–27

1. 1The catena gives the names of the wives of Noah's sons and, in a passage marked as not Hippolytus's, the legend of Adam's body carried into the ark and Noah's bell summoning the sons of Cain.
2. 2Hippolytus reports from an old Hebrew codex how the animals were separated in the ark; a passage marked as not his tells how the flood began from the oven of Ham's wife.
3. 3The catena explains the forty days of the flood as a cleansing of the earth, comparing the forty days of human formation and of Nineveh's repentance.
4. 4Hippolytus and Jacob of Edessa trace the ark's voyage in the four directions, which the catena reads as a figure of the cross, and its rest on Mount Kardu as Christ's return to the Father.
5. 5Hippolytus is cited for the legend that Melchizedek circumcised Abraham, a type of John's baptism of Christ and of the Jews.
6. 6The catena retells Abraham's move from Hebron after Sodom's destruction and the story of Sarah and Abimelech, with legendary additions.
7. 7The catena retells the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael, explaining that Ishmael struck Isaac and that Sarah acted out of jealousy.
8. 8The catena expands the story of Reuben and Bilhah, telling of Bilhah's expulsion, her stay with Esau, and Jacob's never lying with her again.
9. 9The catena explains that Onan spilled his seed out of envy toward his dead brother, and that God killed him for it.
10. 10The catena makes Tamar's sad departure from Judah's house a type of the women and the church mourning Christ on the way to Golgotha, and Judah's promise a type of the promise of the resurrection.
11. 11The catena reads Tamar as the church and Judah as Christ, her putting off widow's garments as the church putting on the garments of faith and the new covenant.
12. 12The catena defends Judah and Tamar as acting by providence, and makes Judah's three pledges a type of Christ's body, blood, and baptism given to the church.
13. 13The catena retells Tamar's vindication before Judah and reads her as a type of the church freed from the reproach of idolatry.
14. 14The catena lists the tribal heads and the numbers of the first census in the wilderness, citing the Syriac Book of Treasures and Chronicles, with Moses as a type of Christ and the twelve heads of the disciples.
15. 15The catena tells of the census of the Levites, who, like the apostles, were not counted with the world, their duties in the tabernacle, and their camping around it in the form of a cross.
16. 16Hippolytus is cited on Num 5–6: the law of restitution teaches confession and repentance, the ordeal of the suspected wife figures the testing of the pure and impure soul, and the Nazirite vow teaches the guarding of soul and faith.
17. 17The catena lists the twelve spies and reads them as types of the apostles, the cluster carried between two men as Christ on the cross between the robbers, and the forty days as the mission of the seventy.
18. 18The catena gives a genealogy tracing Balaam to Abraham through Keturah.
19. 19The catena retells Israel's sin with the daughters of Moab, Phinehas's zeal, the second census, the daughters of Zelophehad, the war against Midian, and the cities of refuge.
20. 20The catena explains Deuteronomy as the repetition of the law broken at the golden calf, and reads the eleven days' journey and five places of Deut 1:1–2 as the hours of the parable of the labourers in the vineyard.
21. 21The catena reads the three cities of refuge as a figure of the Holy Trinity, and recounts legends of how the land east of the Jordan passed from people to people until Israel took it from Sihon.
22. 22The catena recounts the repetition of the ten commandments, the promised land, and legends about Og and his iron coffin.
23. 23The catena summarizes laws of Deuteronomy on tithes, the seventh year, release of slaves and debts, firstborn, food, feasts, judges, sacrifices, and idolatry.
24. 24The catena summarizes laws of Deuteronomy given because of Israel's corruption: retaliation, war, the unsolved murder, the captive wife, the rebellious son, the hanged man, the bird's nest, the parapet, the violated virgin, the runaway slave, interest, and vows.
25. 25The catena summarizes further laws of Deuteronomy: leprosy, pledges, wages, individual responsibility, gleaning, lawsuits, the ox, levirate marriage, just weights, and tithes.
26. 26The catena retells the blessings and curses on Gerizim and Ebal, with notes on Shechem (Nablus), the Samaritans, and events of Genesis and John that took place there.
27. 27The catena tells how Moses viewed the promised land from Nebo, charged Joshua, gave the law to the Levites to be read at the feast of tabernacles, and died and was buried by the angels.