I. New Testament. — Older scholars spoke of that Sj'r. VS of the NT wliic h alone was known to them as ' the Queen ' of all Bible version.s. But now we have more than one, at least for the Gospels.
1. Tradition. — When, in the 16th cent., the Syr. VS of the NT became known in Europe, the belief prevailed that it was due to the evangelist Mark, who was said to have ■.vritten his (lospel first in Latin and then to have translated it, with the other books of the NT, into Syria(\t .larob of Kde.ssa (t 701) and others wtre of the opinion that Aildai the apostle (TllADD^EUS) and king Al>';.ar sent interpreters to Palestine (see Moses bar Cepha [t 913] and Barhebraius, Schulia in J's 10). Wliat Theodore of Mopsuestia says of the Syr. transl.ation of the OT holds equallj' good of the NT ; ijpjxrjutvTat di ravra eU fiiv ttJc twj' ^vpuv nap' iJTov b-i) ttotC oC'di •vAp i'/vwarai M^Xi** ^V^ Tt)pi(pov fitrrti jroT* out6s iartv (Comm. in Hoph. [1, 6] ; Mai, Nova Patr. Jiibl. vli. 18.54).
2. Place. — We do not know whore the trans- lation was made. On the ground of some lin-
• W. Wright, A Short Ilistory of Syriac Literature (London,
1894, p. i^lJtlc. nrit.H xxii. 824).
t ' Syri constanter asserunt S. Marcura . . . latine nrimura scripsiisse Evangclium suiiin. Deindo eundem ipsum Mnrcinii lingua patria, hoc est, Galiliua Syra, non modo Evangetiuin siiiim transtulisso. Bed etiaiii cjeteros omnes NT lihros. Id mihi litteris signiflcavit Guilieliiuis Postellus atllrmavitquo Be lla a Syria ipsis acccpisse ' (Hrxleriantis [Uuido Kevre de la Boderiu] In the I'refacc of the Syr. NT 1571). Widmunstailt, the llrst editor of the NT in Svriac (Ifir-.'V), agrees that Mark wrote In l.atin, but contents hfmsclf with allinning that the book^ ol the NT (except Matthew and Hebrews) were translat4^ inla Syriac * sb Initio rerum Christianorum.'
646
SYRIAC VERSIONS
SYELA.C VERSIONS
guistic peculiarities, Syrian grammarians, as Elias I and Barhebrajus, readied the same conclusion as Jacob of Edessa, that tlie translation originated in PaUstine ; European scholars thought hrst ot ■intioch, because the translation became known to them through the Patriarch of Antioch : in recent times Edessa has found most favour ; but nothing can be said with certainty. .
3. HUtortj.—(a) The lirst mention of a Syriac NT seems to be the statement of Eusebius (y^ii iv 26) on Hegesippus (about 160-180) : (k re tou ^atf'E^paiovi evaryMov Koi to5 IvpioKOu Kai iSiw$ iK TTis 'EfSpoiSos aioA^KTOu Tii-a TWT]nv, ifiipalvuv c„ ■^^palw iavrbv TeTriffTeuK^^-ai (Rulinus: ' de Evan- .^elio secundum Hebra;os et Syros ; oyr- Vb ot Eusebius : ' from tlie Gospels of the Hebrews and Syrians'; see on the passage Th. /ahn, ior- schungen, vi. 246).
(6) About the same time or a little earlier we hear that Tatian, who was born, according to his o^^■n statement, iv rg tO>v 'kaavpluv 777, and had been in Rome the hearer of Justin Martyr, re- turned home— as it seems, in the year 172— and composed (probably there ; not at Rome, about 153-170 [so Hamack formerly, TV 1. 2 3]) his famous Diatessaron, i.e. a harmony of the four Gospels (o-ui'd^eidi' xii/a Ka.1 awayunn" o^'" "'^ '"^'^5 Til/ cuaYY^Mu" awOiU T» oia. rcoaapoiv TovroTpoaoivo- ixaixef, 8 sai irapd natP eiairi. pOf rf^perai, Eus. HH, iv 36 ; in the Syr. Eusebius : ' he gatherecl and mixed and composed a Gospel and called it piates- saron, i.e. of the Afixed {x-^^ri^-i), which is still with manv'). It appears to be simply to a mis- understanding that we owe the remark of Epi- phanius {Ilcer. 46. 1, ed. Dindorf, ii. 412) : X^T"""' di t4 5io TEffcrdpwv €1)077^X101' vir' airrov yeyevqaeai., Sirtp Kara 'EPpaiotJS Ttves KaXoJ<ri. Of this work TluHKluret (till 457 bishop of Kyrrhos) tells us that it was in his times used not only by the tol- lowers of Tatian, but also in orthodox congre^ja- tions • that he himself found more than 200 copies in use in the churches of his diocese ; that he col^ lected and removed all (-rctaa^ awayayi^v aTteip-tiv), ^ substituting for them the Gospels of the Four (ra T(i>' Tcacapuiv evayycXia-rQi' afTeKrrryayoi' eiuyyiMa). A little earlier, bishop Rabbula of Edessa (412- 435) ordered that presbyters and deacons sliould take care that in all churches the 'Gosjiels ot the Separate ' (NS'1?Dn p-him ; S. Ephracmi bi/n, Rahuliz . . . opera sclccta, ed. Overbeck, U.\f. 1865 p. 220) be kept and read. Of the same Rabbula his biographer tells that he occupied himself with ' tramlating the NT out of the Orcek into Syriac, because of its variations, exactly as %t was' (ib. 172).
This Harmony of Tatian was apparently in SvTiac, not in Greek [the latter is (or was) the view of Hamack].
See on all questions connected with Tatian, Arthur HJelt, Dhalts^lris'^hchh'angelieniiimclzungimdTalmnsDmtessaron,
heaondtrs in ihrcm gegenseitinm \ erhaltnu untersucM, l.ei})- zie 1901, pp. 16-76 : the Literature 19 quoted in part in vol. 11. (W f, iii 536,538. Add: E. Lippelt, QxuB fMennt Jrwtui. MaHyria i^.^.n^o'iiA"™ qwiqyf mtMne mm forma evaii- geliorum syro-lalina cohmmnt (Diss.;, 1., Halle, 1901.
The great question is now whether this Diates- saron of Tatian was the first form in which the Gospel came to the Syrians, or whether there was already, before Tatian, a Syr. VS of the Gospels, which he may h.ave used. The question is ddli- cult because 'Tatian's work has not survived in its original form, but only in a late Arabic recension, dul to Abulfaraj Abdullah ibn at Tajjib (tl043) ; further, it seems to have been the basis of the Latin Harmony of Victor of Capua ; it was com- mented on by Ephraem Syrus ; but this com-