Mingana, Alphonse (1878–1937) [Chald.]

Syriac scholar.

He was born in Sharansh al-ʿUlya near Zakho and named Hurmiz. His father Paul was a priest. Mingana joined the Seminary of St. John in Mosul in 1891, where he studied Syriac under Awgen Manna and later succeeded him, when the latter became bp. in 1902. Mingana continued teaching there until 1908. Mingana was ordained a priest in 1902 by Patr. Emmanuel Toma, and adopted the name Alphonse. Mingana traveled in the area collecting mss. He managed to collect 70 mss. 20 of which were on parchment, but they all perished in World War I. Mingana worked as copy-editor at the Dominican Press from 1903–10. In 1907, Mingana published the Chronicle of Arbela (in his Sources syriaques, I) which has caused much controversy. Apparently, Mingana had a scribe make the ms. on whose authority he published the text look as if it belonged to the 10th cent., though it was done at his time. This publication also put him at odds with his patr. and he was asked to leave the seminary. In 1913, armed only with the address of James Rendel Harris , he left the East to live in Birmingham, UK. There he first worked with Rendel Harris on the Odes of Solomon, and later with Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson on Islamic texts. Between 1915 and 1924, he was appointed to catalog the Arabic mss. of the John Rylands Library, and then between 1924 and 1929 he undertook three expeditions to the east collecting Syriac and Arabic (both Christian and Islamic) mss., which would become the Mingana Collection at Selly Oak Colleges. Mingana then turned his attention to cataloguing his collection (3 vols.; 1933–39), and began publishing some of its texts in the series Woodbrooke Studies. Seven volumes appeared in the series.