The crystallisation of the East Syrian (Dyophysite) and West Syrian (Mi- aphysite) identities in the late sixth and early seventh centuries, amply attested to in Syriac religious literature and canons of law, inevitably resulted in growing boundaries between these two communities. What follows is a very preliminary attempt at exploring whether this process is in any way reflected in contemporary art using as a test case a late antique illustrated Syriac Bible. The question will be posed whether it is possible - through analysis of its text, liturgical apparatus and illus¬trations - to attribute this codex to either the West or the East Syrian milieu.

10.1 Codex Paris Syr. 341

The codex Paris Syr. 341 is a Peshitta Bible of the Old and New Testament, though the latter part is now almost entirely lost. The manuscript was intended to be read out in public, as is attested by titles of liturgical readings written out in red ink in the column of text. Most of these titles were deliberately erased at a later date. The codex underwent several revisions by a series of later hands. The most recent of these date to the time of the fourteenth-century conservation, when missing pages were substituted by paper folios written in an East Syrian hand emulating the presentation of the original. The fourteenth-century conservation affected miniatures only in the effort to protect those placed on damaged folios. Of the twenty-seven illustrations in the codex, each marking the beginning of a Biblical book, seven are pasted onto paper pages inserted in the fourteenth century. The pictures at the beginning of Genesis, Leviticus, Isaiah, Amos, Malachi, Psalms, Esther, and all the books of the New Testament, with the exception of the Epistle of James, must have been lost before this conservation and no effort was made to replace them.

The codex, brought to Paris in 1909 by Addaї Scher, is probably identical with the one he described in the catalogue of the episcopal library in Seert in Northern Mesopotamia. An Arabic note on fol. 54v, dated on palaeographical grounds to the twelfth or thirteenth century, states that the manuscript then belonged to the Monastery of Baquqa.