Manuscript of two homilies; written and illuminated at Ptepouhar, the Fayyūm Province, Egypt, between 891 and 893.
Sewing repairs on roughly 1 per 8 leaves.
Peter of Alexandria, Homily on Epiphany translated into Italian by Orlandi and described by Vivian. Epiphanius of Salamis, Homily on Epiphany, on Isaiah 34:15b-16a, and on Psalm 44:2a edited in part by van Lantschoot.
Written area ca. 247 x 184 mm. Divisions: Ekthesis, reddened enlarged or sometimes greatly enlarged initial, and paragraphus sign setting off paragraphs.
Script: Upright (title right-sloping). 10 lines = ca. 81 mm
The same hand also copied a column or so on fol. 35v of M.567 as well as M.612 and M.578.
Superlineation: Non-standard. Punctuation: Raised dot in conjunction with a space; cluster of dots and space fillers at end of paragraphs. Many tremas.
Collation: Signed on first and last page of the quire, top inner margin. No quire ornaments, monograms, headlines or catchwords.
Decoration: headpieces, tailpiece ornaments, marginal ornaments, paragraphus signs, signatures and page numbers, extended letters. Colors: strong reddish orange (Centroid 35), dark yellow (88). See Buchthal-Kurz and Meyvaert, p. 16, n.57.
Scribe: Isak.
Marginal annotations: 1) tail margins of fols. 4v-5r: text in a later hand dealing with John Baptist (who is the topic of fols. 4v-5r); 2) tail margains of fols. 12v-13r: text by a later hand; 3)fol. 18v: drawing of a human figure with glosses added by a later hand.
According to Hyvernat and Petersen, M.612 and the present manuscript, in that order, belong to the same codex, whose pastedowns and covers, according to Petersen, are Ms 3822 (Cairo Ham. I, formerly JdE 47558) and Binding 3822 (Cairo Ham. I, formerly JdE 47558) in Cairo. Since M.612 has a colophon at the end, the two manuscripts must have been at some time in antiquity two separate units (and have hence been classified thus); at a later time they were probably combined in the same ancient binding (Binding 3822). Cf. Hyvernat, p. 151, n. 4, and Petersen, p. 316, n. 13.