Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - 1881.djvu/46

 xxxviii INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

Greenfield, in Bagster's Polyglot, and separately. The pe- culiarity of the Pcshito version, and a proof of its early date, is its omission of 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and the Apocalypse. l)r. Murdock has published a "Literal Translation from the Syriac Peshito Version" (New York, 1851). A translation of the Acts and Epistles from the Peshito, by J. W. Etheridge, appeared in London, 1849.

(6.) The PHILOXENIAN or HARCLEAN version, so called from its patron Philoxcnus, Monophysite bishop of Mabug (Hierapolis), in Eastern Syria (488-518), and from Thomas of Harkel, a subsequent editor, who was likewise a Mo- nophysite bishop of Mabug. It is " probably the most ser- vile version of Scripture ever made" (Scrivener). It is based upon the Peshito, and forces it into rigorous con- formity with the letter of the Greek at the expense of the spirit. It dates from A.D. 508, and was revised by Thomas of Harkel, 616. It contains the whole Xew Testament, except the Apocalypse, and is therefore more complete than the Peshito, which omits four Epistles besides. The only edition of the Philoxenian is that of Joseph White, printed by the Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1778-1803, 4 vols. 4to. Bernstein has published the Gospel of John (Leips. 1853).

(c.) The CURETONIAN Syriac is a mere fragment of the Gospels (consisting of 82 leaves), but very old and valu- able ; though overestimated by Canon Curcton, who thought it " retained, to a great extent, the identical terms and ex- pressions of St. Matthew's Hebrew Gospel." It is regard- ed by most scholars, as Cureton, Payne Smith, Herman- sen, Ewald, Crowfoot, Trcgelles, and Wcstcott and Hort, as the oldest form of the Syriac version, the "Peshito" in its present form holding a relation to it similar to that o-f the

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