496 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



After the New Teftament they place the conftitutions 

 of the Apoftles, which they call Symiodos, which, as far as 

 the cafes or doctrines apply, we may fay is the written law 

 of the country. Thefe were tranflated out of the Arabic. 

 They have next a general liturgy, or book of common pray- 

 er, befides feveral others peculiar to certain feftivals, under 

 whofe names they go. The next is a very large volumi- 

 nous book, called Haimanout Abou, chiefly a collection from 

 the works of different Greek fathers, treating of, or explain- 

 ing feveral herefies, or difputed points, of faith, in the an- 

 cient Greek Church. Tranflations of the works of St Atha- 

 nafius, St Bazil, St John Chryfoftome, and St Cyril, are 

 likewife current among them. The two laft I never faw ; 

 and only fragments of St Athanafius ; but they are certain- 

 ly extant. 



The next is the Synaxar, or the Flos Sanctorum, in which 

 the miracles and lives, or lies of their faints, are at large re- 

 corded, in four monftrous volumes in folio, fluffed full of 

 fables of the moft incredible kind. They have a faint that 

 wreftled with the devil in fhape of a ferpent nine miles long, 

 threw him from a mountain, and killed him. Another 

 faint who converted the devil, who turned monk, and lived 

 in great holinefs for forty years after his converfion, doing 

 penance for having tempted our Saviour upon the moun- 

 tain : what became of him after they do not fay. Again, 

 another faint, that never ate nor drank from his mother's 

 womb, went to Jerufalem, and faid mafs every day at the 

 holy fepulchre, and came home at night in the fhape of a 

 flork. The laft I fhall mention was a faint, who, being ve- 

 ry lick, and his ftomach in diforder, took a longing for par- 

 tridges ; he called upon a brace of them to come to him, 



3 and 



