Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/861

 [RIBLE VERSIONS.] SYRIAC LITERATURE 825 text (see Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, Introd., 118, 214), a version of "the Separate Gospels," Evangelion da-MSpharrSshe, was introduced. 1 The translator, ac- cording to Baethgen, 2 made use of T as far as he could; and of this text Sc is, in the opinion of these scholars, the solitary sur- vival in our days. The evidence for this view does not, however, appear to be conclusive. It seems that a Syriac version of the four Gospels, as well as of the other parts of the New Testament, must have existed in the 2d century, perhaps even before the version of the Old Testament. From this Tatian may have com- piled his Dia-tessaron, or he may have written that work in Greek and others may have done it into Syriac. Be that as it may, T certainly gained great popularity in the early Syrian Church, and almost superseded the Separate Gospels. Aphraates quoted it 3 ; Ephraim wrote a commentary upon it 4 ; the Doctrine of Addai or Addreus (in its present shape a work of the latter half of the 4th century) transfers it to the apostolic times 8 ; Rabbula, bishop of Edessa (411-435), promulgated an order that " the priests and deacons should take care that in every church there should be a copy of the Separate Gospels (Evangelion da-Mfyharreshe), and that it should be read" 6 ; and Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus (423-457), swept up more than two hundred copies of it in the churches of his diocese, and introduced the four Gospels in their place : TO. T&V Tfrrapiav evayyfXiffruv dvreio'riya.yov evayy^iaj The result of these and similar well meant efforts is that not a single copy of T has come down to our times. 8 Both Aphraates and Ephraim, however, made use of the Separate Gospels. The former seems to have employed a text which Baethgen calls a slightly revised form of Sc (op. cit., p. 95) ; we would rather speak of it as a revised form of the old Syriac Gospels of the 2d century. The latter made use of a more thorough Edessene revision, closely approaching in form to, if not identical with, P (Baethgen, p. 95 ; Zalin, p. 63). Our oldest MSS. of P are, however, more than a hundred years later than Ephraim's time. We cannot, therefore, expect very important textual results from the collation of even such MSS. as Add. 14470, 14453, 14459, ff. 1-66, and 17117, in the British Museum, all of which may be safely ascribed to the latter part of the 5th or the beginning of the 6th century. Early in the 5th century Rabbula, bishop of Edessa, the friend and correspondent of Cyril of Alexandria, occupied himself with " trans- lating the New Testament out of the Greek into the Syriac, because of its variations, exactly as it was." 9 This probably means, as has been suggested by Nestle, that Rabbula undertook a revision of the Syriac text according to a Greek MS. or MSS. in his posses- sion, that is to say, still further assimilated P of that day to a Greek (possibly, from his connexion with Cyril, Alexandrian) text. We do not as yet know, however, whether this revision was merely a private effort, or what influence, if any, it exercised on the history of P ; more likely it was a first step in the direction of the Philoxen- ian version (see below). The result of these successive revisions as regards Sc has been that it survives in but one mutilated codex, and that written at comparatively so late a date as 450-470, 10 a phenomenon which has its parallel in the case of the Itala codex c of the Gospels, copied in the llth century. The greater part of this volume is in the British Museum (Add. 14451) 11 ; but there are three leaves of it in the royal library at Berlin, forming the fly- leaves of the MS. marked Orient. Quart. 528. 32 Crowfoot's attempt 1 Zahn, op. cit., pp. 104-106. 2 Qp. cit., pp. 59, 60, 72 sq. 3 Wright's edition, p. --, 1. 10, "as it is written at the head of the Gospel of our Lifegiver, In the beginning was the Word." 4 Now extant only in the old Armenian version, translated by the Mechitarist Aucher, and revised by G. Mosinger under the title of Evangelii Concordantis Expositio facta a S. Ephraemo, Venice, 1876. 5 Phillips's edition, p. Q.^, 1. 17. 6 S. Ephraemi Syri Pabulx epi Edesseni Baltei aliorumque opera selecta, ed. J. J. Overbeck, Oxford, 1865, p. 220, 3. 7 AiperiKrjs KCLKo/JLvOias iirLTO^, i. 20. 8 Martin's article "Le Aia reacrdpuv de Tatien" (from Revue dcs Ques- tions Historiqites, April 1S83) contains much curious literary information, par- ticularly regarding similar compilations of later date. See also Ciasca's article " De Tatiani Diatessaron Arabica Versione," in Cardinal Pitra's A nalecta Sacra Spicilegio Solesmensi parata, iv. 4(55. This Arabic Diatessaron begins with Mark i. 1, John i. 1-5, Luke i. 5-80, Matthew i. ]-25a, Luke ii. 1-39. Ciasca's copy is now (18S7) in the hands of De Lagarde, who has published a few pages of it in Nachrichten von der konigl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaflen, 1886, No. 4, pp. 150-158. According to De Lagarde, the text is that of the ordinary Pgshitta. 9 Overbeck, op. cit., p. 172, 18-20. 10 The whole of the Abbe Martin's elaborate argumentation (Introd. a fa Critique Textuelte du N. T., pp. 163-236) is of no avail against this palseographic fact. No one who is conversant with Syriac MSS. can for a moment doubt that our codex of Sc was written within a few years of the time indicated above. The handwritings of Jacob of Edessa's time (the latter half of the 7th century) are altogether different. Possessors of the abbe's work should cancel pp. 234-236. The " Postscriptum," as the author himself has explained, is only an elaborate joke. There is no MS. Add. 70125 in the British Museum, no catalogue of the Greek MSS. in twenty-five volumes, and of course no such photograph exists as he has described. As for the " special telegram " from "Reverend Crowfoot" through the " agence Fri - Frou-Fro and Co.," dated 25th December 1882, it is enough to say that Mr Crowfoot died on 18th March 1875. 11 See Wright, Catalogue, p. 73, No. cxix. 12 See Rodiger in the Monatsberichte of the Berlin Academy for July 1872, r 557 ; Wright, Fragments of the Curetonian Gospels (privately printed). to retranslate Sc into Greek is a failure (Fragmenta Evangelica, 1870-72) ; Baethgen's work (Evangelienfragmcnte, &c. ) will per- haps be found more satisfactory. The scholars of the Monophysite branch of the Syrian Church Mono- were, however, by no means satisfied even with the revised text physite of P, and demanded a yet more accurate reproduction of the Greek versions, text in use among them. Accordingly Aksenaya or Philoxenus, bishop of Mabbogh (485-519), undertook to satisfy this want, and Philo- with the assistance of his chorepiscopus, Polycarp, produced a literal xenus. translation of the whole Bible in the year 508. 13 This seems at h'rst to have met with considerable approval ; Moses of Aggel, for example, who flourished from 550 to 570, u refers to the version of the New Testament and of the Psalms evidently as the standard work of the day. 15 But it was in its turn superseded by two later revisions, and MSS. of it are now very rare. Portions of Isaiah survive in the British Museum, Add. 17106, ff. 74-87, 16 and the text of the Gospels in the codex A. 2, 18 of the Biblioteca An- gelica at_Rome, of the llth or 12th century, 17 and perhaps also in the Beirut (Beyrout) MS. described by the Rev. Isaac H. Hall. 18 At the beginning of the 7th century the work of retranslation and revision was again taken in hand by the Monophysites, the scene of their labours being the different convents in the neighbour- hood of Alexandria. There, in the years 616-617, 1<J Paul, bishop Paul of of Telia dhe-Mauzelath or Constantina, undertook a version of the Telia, hexaplar text of the LXX. at the request of the patriarch Atha- nasius I. 20 Of parts of this many MSS. are extant in the British Museum and the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris, and the Biblio- teca Ambrosiana at Milan possesses the second volume of a codex of the entire work, which has been reproduced by photo-lithography under the direction of Ceriani. 21 This version not only exhibits the asterisks and obeli of Origen's text of the LXX., but the marginal notes contain many readings of the other Greek trans- lators, which have been largely utilized by Field in his noble work Origenis Hcxaplorum quse supcrsunt (2 vols., Oxford, 1875). At the same time and place the New Testament of Philoxenus was Thomas thoroughly revised by Thomas of Harkel or Heraclea, 22 bishop of of Har- Mabbogh,- 3 who, being driven from his diocese, betook himself to kel. Alexandria and worked there in the convent of St Antony at the Enaton (or Nine-mile-village). 24 This version comprises not only all the books contained in the Peshitta but also the four shorter epistles. 25 The lapse of another century brings us to the last attempt at a revision of the Old Testament in the Monophysite Church. Jacob, bishop of Edessa, undertook, when living in retire- Jacob of ment in the convent of Tell- Adda or Teleda, 26 in 704-705, to revise Edessa. the text of the Peshitta with the help of the Greek versions at his disposal, 27 thus producing a curious eclectic or patchwork text. Of this work there are but five volumes extant in Europe, four of which came from the Nitrian Desert and form parts of a set which was written in the years 719-720. It would seem, therefore, never to have attained popularity. 28 One other version remains to be noticed, namely, that used by is Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientalis, ii. 23. W B.O., ii. 82. 15 Ibid., ii. 83 ; Guidi, Rendiconti della R. Accademia dei Lincei, May and June 1SS6, p. 404. 1' Edited by Ceriani in Monumenta Sacra et Profana, vol. v. fasc. 1, pp. 1-40. 17 See Bernstein, Das heilige Evangelium des Johannes, Leipsic, 1853, krit. Anmerkungen, pp. 3, 29 ; Martin, Introd. a la Crit. Text, du N. T., pp. 160-161. 18 Syriac Manuscripts, Gospels ofapre-Harklensian Version, Acts and Epistles of the Peshitto Version, tvritten (probably) between 700 and 900 A.D., January 1884. 19 See Ceriani, Monumenta, vol. i. fasc. 1 : Prolegomena in Edit. Vers. Syr. ex Textu LXX., p. iii. ; Martin, Introd., p. 139, note. 20 j}.o., ii. 333-334. 21 Monumenta, vol. vii.: Codex Syro-hemplaris Ambrosianus, 1874. The first volume of this codex was in the possession of Andreas Masius, but lias dis- appeared since his death in 1573. It contained part of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, (four books of) Kings, Chronicles, Ezra (and Nehemiah), Judith, and Tobit (complete?). See Middeldorpf, Codex Syriaco- hexaplar is, Berlin, 1835, who enumerates in his preface the labours of previous editors. Since his time the books of Judges and Ruth have been published by T. Skat Rordam (Libri Judicum et Ruth secundum Vers. Syriaco-hexaplarem, Copenhagen, 1859- 61), and Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, 1 and 2 Kings, by P. de Lagarde (Vet. Test, ab Origene recensiti Fragmenta apud Syros servata quinque, Gottingen, 1880, printed with Hebrew letters). Ceriani has commenced a critical edition in the Monu- menta, vol. i. fasc. 1 ; vol. ii. fascc. 1-4 ; vol. v. fascc. 1, 2. 22 See B.O., ii. 90, 334 ; Bernstein, De Hharklensi N. T. Translation Syriaca Commentatio, p. 4. 23 Or Manbij ; according to others, of Germanicia or Mai-'ash. He must not be confounded with an older Thomas of Germanicia, a Monophysite of the earlier part of the 6th century ; see B.O., ii. 92, 326 ; Kleyn, Jacobus Baradaeiis, p. 43, note 1. 24 See Wright, Catal. , p. 34, note. 25 It has been edited by White at Oxford the Gospels in 1778, the Acts and Apostolic epistles in 1799, the Pauline epistles in 1803 (the epistle to the Hebrews is defective, ending in the middle of chap. xi. 27). The text of the shorter epistles, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude, has been recently reproduced by phototype from a manuscript dated 1471 Williams Manuscript. The Syrian Antilegomena Epistles. . . edited b>/ Isaac H. Hall, 1886. Consult also Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xxvii. No. viii., " On a Syrian MS. belonging to the Collection of Archbishop Ussher," by the Rev. J. Gwynn, D.D. There is a fine MS. of this version, dated 1170, in the university library, Cambridge, Add. MS. 1700. Its peculiar feature is that it has the two ef> istles of Clement inserted between the catholic epistles and those of St Paul. 26 Probably the modern Tell'adi or Tell'ade ; see Socin, Paldst. u. Syrien, p. 480 ; Sachau, Reise in Syrien u. Mesopotamien, p. 459. 27 Wright, Catal., p. 38, col. 1. 28 See Ceriani, Le Edizioni e i Manoscritti delle Versioni Siriache del Vecchio Test., 1S69, p. 27, and Monumenta, vol. ii. fasc. 1, pp. xi., xii., vol. v. fasc. 1, pp. 1-40 ; Martin, Introd.. pp. 230-232, 296 sq. XXII. 104