ܫܒܝܬܐ ܕܕܝܪ̈ܝܐ – ܚܬܡܐ ܕܕܝܪܐ ܕܡܪܝ ܐܦܪܝܡ – ܗܘܠܢܕܐ 1993
صلوات الرهبان – الأشبية – بالعربية (تنبيه: الترجمة بحاجة إلى مراجعة)
Prayer Book of Monks
Monks also have a small book containing a group of supplicatory prayers which they recite daily during the seven times of prayer. The purpose of these prayers is to elevate the mind to God, contemplate His wonderful works, praise Him and ask His forgiveness. Some of these prayers are beautiful samples of eloquence and rhetoric. They were mainly written by the ascetics Ephraim, Abraham of Qaydun, Macarius the Egyptian, Gregory the resident of Cyprus (who wrote forty prayers), Isaac, John the Lesser, John the Apocalyptic, Serapion, Paul bishop of Cnotus, Simon the Stylite, Shanudin, Isaiah and others. They were also written by doctors of the church like Athanasius, Basilius, Gregory Nazianzen, John Chrysostom, Euthycus, Philoxenus and Severus. We have also found three old copies of this prayer book, the first of which was written around 1420,[1] the second in 1500 in the handwriting of the monk Sergius of Hah,[2] and the third in 1507.[3] Later scholars translated these supplicatory prayers into mediocre Arabic.
Source: Barsoum, Ignatius Aphram. The Scattered Pearls: A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences. Translated by Matti Moosa. 2nd revised. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2003, 97.
[1] The Library of St. Matthew’s Monastery, Collection of Ascetic Literature.
[2] At the Lazarus Monastery in Habsnas, Tur ‘Abdin.
[3] The Church of al-Tahira (the Virgin Mary) in Mosul. A copy of this book of prayer is in the Sharfeh Monastery MS. 112 (transcribed by Maphryono Simon of Beth Man’im with marginal notes, while he was a monk in Mar Abhai’s Monastery in 1696).