Page:Commentaries of Ishodad of Merv, volume 1.djvu/35

Rh rivalling the great inspiration of Simon Peter at Caesarea Philippi, must have struck many a reader with surprise. Ishoʿdad has noticed the difficulty, and says:

If this is Ishoʿdad's own comment, it shows the impression which the language made upon an Oriental mind. But then again it may be Theodore.

Occasionally we shall find an ethical variant for which it will be difficult to obtain a sponsor amongst the N.T. editors. In Luke xxii. 36 (where the suggestion is made that the sale of a garment might secure the purchase of a sword) we are told that

Whoever the people were who had made this correction in the Gospel of Luke, they had certainly not lost sight of the spirit of the Gospel in their study of the letter.

In dealing with the Old Syriac readings preserved in Ishoʿdad, it will be convenient, first of all, to repeat his allusions to the Diatessaron.

To the well-known passages in which Bar Ṣalibi and Bar Hebraeus repeat these statements, we may now add the Nestorian Chronicle of Saert, p. 85, as follows: