Page:Commentaries of Ishodad of Merv, volume 1.djvu/24

 xvi he also draws largely upon Syriac Gospels which antedate the Peshiṭta version, and are, therefore, known comprehensively by the title of Old Syriac. Not only was Tatian quoted in several places, but the Commentary of Ephrem upon the Diatessaron could be found lurking under the name of Ephrem, so that the pages of Ishoʿdad became a gold-mine for the recovery of the original Syriac of Ephrem's Commentary, known until then only from an Armenian translation; and I was able in 1895 to publish a whole volume of these imbedded fragments, under the title of Fragments of the Commentary of Ephrem Syrus upon the Diatessaron: the process of extraction was not exhaustive, there was some more still to be identified; and in Mrs Gibson's pages, it will sometimes happen that an unidentified fragment of the Diatessaron commentary may be, here and there, lurking. Scholars will be on the look out for such, in view of the importance of Ephrem's work for the restoration of the text of Tatian; indeed all Ephrem's genuine commentaries have acquired fresh importance, since Prof. Burkitt showed that the supposed dependence of Ephrem upon the Peshiṭta was a fiction.

Next in importance to the Ephrem quotations, we should place those which are said to come from the Mephassekana or Interpreter, a title which covers the proscribed name of the glorious Father Theodore of Mopsuestia, and protects his quoted fragments from the destruction which has attended his complete works. We shall be able to collect a great deal of Theodore in this way, and occasionally also a fragment of his great disciple Nestorius. As the commentary of Ishoʿdad belongs to the Nestorian Church we are surprised at not finding more references to their leader: but the destruction of heretical books was very complete in the case of Nestorius: Abdishoʿ knew of only three which had escaped ecclesiastical malice and vindictiveness. In connexion with Nestorianism we shall find extracts from a number of leading writers of that school, such as Ḥannana (of Hedhaiyabh), Babai the Great, Babai the Persian, Bar HḤdbashaba and Ḥonain. The conventional Greek fathers are also well represented.

It will be convenient to make a rough tabulation of the authorities involved:
 * Africanus,
 * Ambrose of Milan,
 * Ananishoʿ,
 * Andrew, brother of Magnes the Great,
 * Anonymous inspired writers, quoted as Theophori,
 * Apocryphal Acts of Peter,