Moses Bar Kepha

[pp. 85-86]

MOSES BAR ΚΕΡΗA

(d. 903 A.D.)

A Syrian bishop and author of a still unpublished Hexaemeron.

HO 3, 194f. Baumstark-Reichert; LThK 7, 654 Stuiber

T.: MC 559 r (Paris, Bibl.Nat., MS syr 241, fols. 168v-174v) S:1

[p. 86] Book 4, Ch. 16: One calls Lubiyû (Libya) all the country lying south of the Adriyôs Sea (Mediterranean) up to a burnt land, which lies under the sun and is unknown, inhospitable and impassable, as it is south of the outer Kūsh (fol. 168v-169r).

Ch. 17: There are some [scientists] who divide the Earth from south to north into seven Climates. They say that the First Climate is inhabited by the outer Hindûyê a people of hideous aspect, who wear no clothes ... They have no religion, no commandements, no laws; they are cannibals and live long.

In the Second Climate are found the Kushâyê and the Sa'ranê (the hairy ones?). Their features are less hideous than those of the inhabitants of the First Climate ... They wear clothes, but they have no notion of God; they practice divination and mysterious rituals, (fol. 169v).

Book 5, Ch. 5: [One of the gulfs of the Red Sea] is the gulf known as the Arabian: ... it flows from the country of the Kushâyê to the desert of Faran ... its length is 1400 miles, its width 200 miles.

There are two lakes which feed the river Nilos, and also another lake, called Qolon, which feeds the River Astafinos, which flows into the Nilos.