Page:Commentaries of Ishodad of Merv, volume 1.djvu/32

xxiv of conflicting with one another; and the confusion has led to an artificial refinement by which Ellō has been assimilated, by pointing, to the Greek, where it means but. It is not, however, necessary to vary the pointing, for the Semitic dialects have evolved the sense except out of the collocation and not; so that, as the Lexicon will show, the Syriac can be rendered either nisi or sed, etiam, tamen: and this will furnish the explanation of the divergence in Matt, and Mark: it lies in a variant translation of an original Aramaic.

So far we are dealing with Matt, and Mark, and their Peshiṭta renderings of, and. On looking closer at Ishoʿdad's commentary, we see traces, however, of an Old Syriac rendering: we are told that one may take from one's own house things that are necessary for a journey, viz. staff and shoes. And we notice that a new word is given for both: we have for the staff, and  for the shoes. is the Peshiṭta word in Mark, where the Matthean translation is. The suggestion arises that the divergence between Matthew and Mark had been got over in the Old Syriac by a variety of translation, according to which Matthew would say

and Mark would allow

When we turn to the Old Syriac, we find for the staff, in Matt. in the Lewis text and in Mark in the same text ; while the sandals are represented in Matt. by the word and in Mark by the direct transliteration. It seems clear that the translations in Matt. and Mark in the Old Syriac were diverse. If they were intentionally diverse, the variation is made in the interests of a subsequent harmony; if unintentionally, then the first great Harmonist will have to combine them. So we see the importance of this passage in the Synoptic tradition and in the question of its first harmonisation. If the first harmony is made in Greek, there is not much chance that will be varied; on the other hand both  and  are likely to be found in the resultant text. Let us see what we actually find in the fragments and traditions of Tatian's harmony that have come down to us.