(2) Gregory had this early version. He quoted 3 Co from it, and ho would have quoted Lk 22"-** also, only his literary purpose aid not re- quire him to do so.
I do not Hcc how else we can interpret the last paragraph of Theodore. The same conclusion can * Tills appean to be an extracanunlcal citation.
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ARMENIAN VERSION
ARMOUR, ARMS
be reached by another way. For the version of 3 Co belonged to the first translation of the NT. Gregory had this 3 Co, and cited it. Is it likely that he would have used an outlying portion of NT in a certain edition of it, and not have had the Gospels also ? We may note that the ' First translation,' as it contained Paul's Epistles, can- not have been merely an Arm. Diatessaron, though the statement that Gregory did not cite the texts in order is suggestive of such a supposition. If these inferences are just, the first Arm. version af NT was made at the beginning rather than towards the end of the 4th cent., although the native historians of the 4th cent, are silent about it.*
Parts of NT were translated in the 5th cent., but were omitted from the later Arm. Canon. Thus the Apocalypse was not read in church before the 12th cent., when Nerses of Lampron issued a much changed recension of the old version. Similarly the last twelve verses of Mk were rendered in the 5th cent., for Eznik cites them about A.D. 435 ; but they hardly appear in the MSS before the 13th cent., and then not as an integral part of the second Gospel. In a 10th cent, codex of the Gospels at Edscbmiatzin they are headed by the title ' of Ariston the Pres- byter,' written in small red uncials by the first hand. Ariston has been identified with Aristion the teacher of Papiaa. And the knowledge which the Armenians had that the verses were his and not Mark's, explains the hostile attitude towards them of the Arm. Church.
The episode of the woman taken in adultery is likewise absent from the oldest MSS ; though it is cited as early as A.D. 950 by Gregory of Narek. The Edscbmiatzin codex of A.D. 989 is the oldest codex which contains it, though not in the form in which Gregory and the later codices give it, but as follows : —
* A certain wonun wu taken in sins, against whom all bore witness that she was deserving of deatli. Tliey brougiit iier to Jesus (to see) what tie would conunand, in order that they might malign him. Jesus made answer, and said, "Come ye, who are without sin, cast stones, and stone her to death." But he himseU, bowing bis head, was writing with bis finger on the earth, to declare their sins ; and they were seeing their several sins on the stones. And, filled with shame, they rleparted, and no one remained, but only the woman. Saith Jesus, " Go in peace, and present the offering for sins, as in their law is written.
This primitive form of text has the Arm. equiva- lent of Td T^s /ioixiMSos written against it in the margin by the first hand. It is probably derived from Papias or the Heb. Gospel.
One other reading of the old Arm, version deserves notice. It occurs in the oldest known codex, dated A.D. 887, preserved in the Lazareffski Institute at Moscow. It is in Mt 2", and as follows : & doT-^p , , . iardOrj itrdvijj toO (nrtjXaiou oS f/p ri Toudiof. The same text is found in the Prot- evangel, c. xxi., and accounts for the variant here found in the Codex Bez».
The Arm. Bible was first printed at Amsterdam in 1666, but from a single manuscript, and the printed text was in places adjusted to the Latin Vulgate. A later edition, issued in 1733 by Mecnitar in Venice, was mainly a reprint of the edition of 1666. "The first critical edition was issued in 1805 at Venice under the care of Zohrab, who used several codices, the best of them one written early in the 14th cent. The variants of the MSS used are given under the text ; but
• A comparison of the Arm. text of the Paulines with Kphrem's commentarj- (preserved in Arm.), with the Syr. and with the closely allied Georgian Version, demonstrates that the Arm. and Geo. versions were originally made from the pre- Peflhitta Syr. text used by Ephreni, and were afterwarris cor- rected from Or. texts. This revision of these two versions was probably made about 400 a.d., and was more thorough in the ««M of Arm. than of Georgian.
without distinguishing in which codex whick variant is read. However, one codex of the Arm. Bible differs very slightly from another. Other edd. have been published in Moscow, Constanti- nople, and Venice during this century ; those of Venice being particularly good and reliable. There is not the slightest foundation for the statement sometimes made, that the Arm. version was in the time of the Crusaders conformed to the Lat. Bible. At that time, indeed, the Lat. chaptering began to be added in the margin, and the Prologus Galeatus of Jerome was translated, and in some codices affixed, to the Book of Kings ; but no changes were made under Lat. influence in the text itseli.