Three texts on Christian festivals, in Arabic and French translation, part of the long series published in Patriologia Orientalis on the saint's days of the East: The tenth-century Muslim historian al-Biruni wrote on Christianity at length; he included a calendar of the Melchite or Chalcedonian Orthodox Syrians, including some anecdotes for his Muslim readers, here reprinted. The 14th century Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi also wrote a tome on monuments and topography; in the process he discussed a dozen chief holy days of the Copts. In the festival of the Holy Cross, he includes a life of Constantine, which explains how he was converted from his hatred of Christianity when Sylvester cured his leprosy. The third text, transcribed from a Garshuni original into the Arabic alphabet, is a short calendar, with the length of day and night and some saints' days for each month; this Maronite text, by Gebrail ibn al-Qola'i, is older than the reception of the Roman Calendar by the Maronites, and is copied from an eighteenth-century manuscript.