Page:Barlaam and Josaphat. English lives of Buddha.djvu/43

 Rh three various Arabic texts which are still extant, with that of the Hebrew version of Abraham ibn Chisdai (ob. 1240). The difficulty here is put at once by the opening words of ibn Chisdai's version: "Thus saith the translator from the Greek into Arabic." Besides the rarity of such direct translations, without the intermediation of Syriac, there is the further difficulty that the Hebrew version does not entirely agree, either in order or in contents, with any of the Arabic texts at present accessible. It comes nearer to the Halle MS., but that on the face of it is only an extract. Professor Hommel, and his pupil, Dr. Weisslovits, claim for the Hebrew version a closer relationship with the Pehlevi original than is the case with the Greek: and though Dr. Kuhn seems opposed to the claim, it would seem to be confirmed by the agreement of the Hebrew with the order of the parables in the Arabic texts, which again agrees with that of the Georgian to which we have assigned a closer relationship to the Pehlevi version.

The following table of Professor Hommel will indicate this:—