This early history of the Church of the East was part of a volume issued to commemorate the exhibition of thirty Syriac inscriptions from Central Asia at the Musee Guimet.

François Nau (1864–1931) in this volume gives a French translation of the so-called Octateuch of Clement from Syriac, which has many parallels with other canonical literature such as the Apostolic Constitutions and the Canons of Hippolytus.

Contained in this work are thirteen lists of saints’ days in the Syriac tradition based on various sources.

The text published here is the Book of the Laws of Countries, a dialogue in which Bardaisan plays the major role. Nau gives this fascinating text in Syriac (Estrangela) and a French translation along with explanatory notes.

Nau here publishes a collection of Maronite works: three works of John Maron (with French translation), then part of a Maronite Chronicle, some controversial texts, the History of Daniel of Mardin, and, finally, a work touching on 5th cent. Beirut.

Nau gives here a heavily annotated French translation of the Syriac version of Nestorius’s lost Greek work called The Book of Heraclides, a lengthy defense and description of his christological position, along with a few shorter texts.

These eighteen stories pertaining to Anastasius of Mount Sinai include unique information and variations of stories preserved elsewhere. Nau presents the edited Greek text along with an introductory discussion of authorship and sources.

François Nau collated various manuscripts containing stories about the holy fathers of Sinai and presents here the critical and annotated text. These stories offer otherwise unknown information about St. John Climacus and include useful historical and geographic details.