The title of the Bazaar must be translated: Liber inscriptus: Mercatura Heraclidis Damasceni, scriptus a D. Nestorio. "Tegourta" which is translated "Bazaar" is no doubt the translation of the Greek πραγματεια which signifies "mercatura" and also "tractatus" (philosophiae vel theologiae) [i.e. treatise of philosophy or theology].
A single manuscript of the Syriac translation of the Bazaar survived to the end of the 19th century, at which time it was found in the library of the Nestorian patriarch. That dignitary had found it necessary for his own safety to base himself at Kotchanes in the mountains of Kurdistan. Bedjan tells us that the Syriac translation was made around 535 at the time of the patriarch Paul, and according to notes in the copy of it at Ourmiah (ms. 147), it was about 800 years old. The manuscript was mutilated. This mainly happened in 1843, during a famous massacre carried out by a Kurdish chief and Turkish official, Bader Khan Bey, against the Christians. Bedjan tells us that he has met survivors of the massacre himself in Persia.
Based upon the blank pages in the manuscripts which I have seen myself and some small notes of the copyist, I calculate that in the text as far as p. 146 of my edition some 55 pages of text are missing; to page 161, 42 pages are missing; to page 209, 36 pages are missing. This calculation can only be approximate. Also there are some passages where a number of lines have been left blank, and in other places small sections are unreadable through age.
A copy was made from this manuscript by the priest Ouchana in 1889, secretly and in haste, for the library of the American missionaries at Ourmiah. Two copies were made from this copy. One was made for Cambridge, and the other for Strasbourg. I have both of these here with me. In addition, I have obtained a third manuscript from Kurdistan, one part of which was written at Van and the other at Kotchanes directly from the famous manuscript of the patriarch. Because I received both parts from Van, I have referred to them both under the same name [of Van].
A footnote thanks the Rev. Bethune-Baker for loaning the Cambridge copy to Bedjan.
It is quite unclear how a copy could be written at Van unless a further copy had been made sometime, or else the manuscript had travelled there. Bedjan's words are repeated by Driver and Hodgson. Francois Nau's introduction, p.xxii ff, elaborates the story and supplies additional detail.
The unique manuscript preserved at Kotchanes belongs to the 11th or 12th century. ...
From this manuscript, a copy was taken in secret and in haste in 1889 by the priest Auscha`nâ, for the library of the American missionaries at Ourmiah, cf. infra , p. 4 note 5. All the copies derive from this copy of Ourmiah, apart from that ( V ) which P. Bedjan had made, part at Van (coming from Kotchanes) and part at Kotchanes itself.
From the Ourmiah copy there were made:
1. A copy for the university of Strasbourg by the efforts of the abbé H. Goussen, cf. Martyrius Sahdona's Leben und Werke , Lepizig, 1897, p. 15, note 1, and the analysis of A. Baumstark in Oriens Christianus , t. III (1903), p. 517-520.
2. Two copies for Messrs. Parry and Jenks, the first of whom was the leader and the other a member of the English mission at Ourmiah. [A footnote tells us that while the US mission was founded in 1836, there was a mission sent out from England around 1890 by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the request of the Nestorian patriarch]. Jenks' copy was first placed at the disposal of Bethune-Baker, and was translated for him by one of his friends in order to be used for his book, Nestorius and his teaching .
Jenks' copy is currently in Cambridge University Library. Parry's copy was donated to the British Library. In common with so many manuscripts at that institution since WW1, it has been effectively unavailable to those who could use it. Nau continues:
3. A copy in 1899 for Rendel Harris, which can now be found at Harvard college in the USA. Cf. Bethune-Baker, loc. cit. p. xiv-xv.
Bethune-Baker's book (Cambridge, 1908) is online at google book , although only to US readers. Bethune-Baker tells us (p.xiv-xv) that:
...I learn from Mr. O. H. Parry, the head of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Mission to the Assyrian Christians at Urmi ... that members of the mission had long been acquainted with the book, and that several copies had been made.
Mr. D. Jenks, a former member of the mission (1892-99) was the first to learn of the MS [the copy in the American library at Ourmiah] and to procure a copy of it. A copy was also obtained by Dr. Rendel Harris in 1899. (This copy is now, I understand, at Harvard.) Mr. Parry himself has had a copy by him for the last seven years and has made a translation of part of it. ... Mr Jenks, now a member of the House of the Sacred Mission, ... brought [his copy] back with him to England in 1899 and has kindly placed his copy at my disposal for use in this fresh examination of the teaching of Nestorius.
A friend, who is an expert Syriac scholar, has been good enough to make a translation of it for me, and it is his translation which I have used whenever the book is referred to or quoted. ... I should have wished his name to appear on the title page. But his standpoint on matters concerning the church and church doctrine is not the same as mine. He would not treat the subject as a whole as I have treated it, nor would he wish to associate himself with all the inferences which I have drawn from the fresh evidence which is now available.
SPCK announced ca. 1920 that a translation prepared by Norman McLean, also a Cambridge don would be forthcoming, so I think that we may presume that he was the anonymous friend referred to. No such work was published, however. The whereabouts of this translation are now unknown. I queried whether it had been deposited at Cambridge University Library, but they have little by McLean other than a couple of letters.
Nau adds:
In 1903 the manuscript at Strasbourg (S) had already been copied and vocalised by Fr. Bedjan, and the abbé Ermoni began to translate the work into Latin from this copy. He halted after completing around a third of the work and had to abandon it at that point. ... It was in 1909 that Fr. P. Bedjan asked me to translate the Book of Heraclides from the proof-sheets of his edition.
Bedjan continues:
These various copies have allowed me to verify the text, to fill up accidental gaps, and to compensate, to a certain degree, for the absence of the ancient manuscript, of which I have not been able to have knowledge. ...
The Cambridge copy is of a very nice calligraphy and is the only one that is vocalised, although often in a very defective manner. The proper names are mispronounced, especially towards the beginning. [Problems with the name Sophronius] Sophronius, bishop of Tella, was excommunicated at the Robber council led by Disocorus as a partisan of Nestorius.
A footnote adds that the details about Sophronius can be found in Assemani, B.O. t. 1, pp. 202, 402. He was the cousin of Ibas, it is said. He was reintroduced at Chalcedon, after which he was obliged to anathemise Nestorius. (Labbe, t. IV, 623 D).
In the different copies we can see that each has tried to reproduce the old manuscript, and each has placed the second folio where the first should be, and vice-versa. The copyists through an excess of scrupulousness have followed this false pagination. I have placed the pages back in their natural order.