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Rh rendering is actually found can only be explained on the supposition that it was the primitive Syriac equivalent for the Greek words. But if it could be tolerated at all, there must have been an utter absence of exegetical tradition in the Church.

Thus we come back to the point from which we started. The Greek-speaking Church and its daughters were wholly dependent for its historical information about our Lord and His times on the bare letter of the Greek Gospels, and the only advantage in this respect enjoyed by the Christians of Edessa was that their native idiom was akin to that of Palestine.

In studying the Syriac-speaking branch of the Church, therefore, we may not hope to find an organisation more primitive than that of Justin Martyr or Hegesippus. But we know too little about the Church of the second century not to be grateful for anything that promises to throw light upon its aims and beliefs. And here the Syriac evidence is of real value. The Christianity planted in the Euphrates valley in the latter half of the