Abū Sa'īd Ibn Sayyid al-Dār Ibn Abī al-Fadl al-Masīhī
14th Century
Coptic Church
Egypt

Abū Sa'īd Ibn Sayyid al-Dār Ibn Abī al-Fadl al-Masīhī was a "Coptic author who lived about 1322" and who might have been the author of the Canons of Ammonius and Eusebius (Sbath, 1938, 1939). But G. Graf did not treat him as an author and, apparently, by merely mentioning the manuscript without referring to the author's name, indicated that he had only been the copyist of the Canons.

Abū Sa'īd, in fact, did not recopy the Canons of Ammonius, which comprise only a few pages; rather, he composed a true diatessaron based on this work. He confirmed this himself in the colophon of his signed manuscript. "The gathering [jam'] of the Canons which bring together the four holy Gospels was achieved on Monday, 19th day of the month of Hatur of the year 1039 of the pure Martyrs. This date corresponds to the 4th day of Dhū al-Qa'dah of the year 722 of the Muslim Hijrah. The humble servant and sinner, Abū Sa'īd ibn Sayyid [or Sīd] al-Dār ibn Abī [sic] al-Fadl al-Masāhī, gathered them with his own hand for his personal use" (Sbath, 1946). This date corresponds to 15 November A.D. 1322.

Of this diatessaron we possess the signed manuscript (Sbath, no. 1038) and a copy that belonged to a Cairene Orthodox Coptic book dealer, Murqus Jirjis.

Abū Sa'īd did not translate the Gospels anew to compose his diatessaron. He used a translation, then widely accepted in the Coptic church, that is found in other manuscripts (e.g., Vatican Library, Sbath, no. 27 and Sbath, no. 1029, which differ from Sbath, no. 1035 [Sbath, 1928]). This version was the so-called Egyptian Vulgate, which was improved by al-As'ad Abū al-Faraj ibn al-'Assāl about 1240. Abū Sa'īd, however, did not use the improved version.

Besides composing his diatessaron, Abū Sa'īd copied at least two manuscripts, one in 1312 and the other in 1330.

A manuscript of the Coptic Patriarchate in Cairo (Theology 152) forms a collection of spiritual and monastic writings containing extracts from John Sabas (named, in Arabic, al-shaykh al-rūhānī, the spiritual old man; Graf, 1944, pp. 434-36) as well as the Pinnacles of Knowledge (Ru'ūs al-Ma'rifah) by Evagrius Ponticus. These constitute a supplement to Kephalaia Gnostica (Graf, 1944, p. 398, no. 2). This manuscript was transcribed by the priest Sulaymān ibn Sa'd ibn al-Rāhibah, minister of the Church of the Virgin of Hārit Zuwaylah. It was completed on 5 January 1739 (see fol. 118v) and was copied from a manuscript transcribed by Abū Sa'īd Ibn Sayyid al-Dār Ibn Abī al-Fadl al-Masīhī and dated 1 Misrā A.M. 1028/13 July A.D. 1312. This notation in the text seems to apply only to the writings of John Sabas. This manuscript is described by Graf (1934) and by Simaykah (1942).

In October 1330, Abū Sa'īd copied the sermons for the Feast of the Lord, which were composed in 1240 by Būlus al-Būshī, a Coptic priest in Old Cairo. He copied them from a manuscript transcribed by Ibn Sadaqah, who himself had copied them from a manuscript written by CYRIL III Ibn Laqlaq (1235-1243), a contemporary of Būlus al-Būshī, of the Coptic Patriarchate, Cairo (Theology 339) described by Simaykah, 1942; this is not the manuscript described by Graf (Vol. 2).

Khalil Samir, S.J.