* To these we may add Mt 1023 (the omission of ro "Io puna).
+ Guardian, Oct. 31, 1894.
{ Op. cit. p. 107f. ‘ ;
§ Hjelt, op. cit. p. 108 n., corrects this to fifteen, and points out that in four of these passages Ss is defective.
[a ee
460 DIATESSARON
DIATESSARO
re reg es
we have seen, was the accepted text of the Syriac Church during the 8rd and 4th centuries. In re- spect of their ‘dogmatic’ character, the difference between the two codices is even more strongly marked, since Ss exhibits no traces of Tatian’s influence. A striking illustration of this fact is furnished by an examination of the two texts in the crucial passage, Mt 158-25; v.Ss her hushand— Se omits; v.2” Ss thy wife—Se thy betrothed ; v.21 Ss and thow shalt call —Se (his name) shall be called; v.4Ss his wife—Se Mary; v.28s and she bore him a son, and HE called his name Jesus— Se and he lived with her purely, until she brought Sorth the son, and SHE called his name Jesus. (In this rendering of ov éylywoxev atrhv [omitted by Ss] Se follows Tatian). But it is obvious that the lack of agreement between Ss and Se on these points, which formed the basis of Baethgen’s argument for the priority of T to Se, materially weakens the case for the similar relation between T and Ss, since the other points of contact are not decisive in themselves and may have arisen equally well from the dependence of T on Ss.
Moreover, we are not without. positive proofs of the priority of the Old Syriac (as represented by Ss). The most important of these is the omission in Ss of the last twelve verses of St. Mark, which, as Burkitt has pointed out, can only be a Greek variant, and must represent, therefore, the origi- nal form of the Old Syriac. But we know that Tatian included Mk 16°-2° in his Harmony : hence its omission by Ss clearly points to the priority of the latter. Other omissions which point to the same conclusion are those of Mk 15%, Lk 2943. 44 (the Bloody Sweat) and 23* (the Prayer on the Cross), all of which are given in the Diatessaron.
Similar evidence is also afforded by the curious mistranslations of Ss which occur in’ Mt 2216 Mk 776 10°, Lk 4% In Mt 2216 rovs MaOnras abirod (Se Tod ‘Inood) for air&v (Se rev Papicaiwy); in Mk 726 Ss renders from the border of Tyre in Phenicia, clearly identifying the Zvpo in Svpodowlxcoa with Tyre (ns); in Mk 10° droSaddv is misread as dmodaBdv ; in Lk 4 its rendering presupposes tore karaxpeudoat avrdy instead of dare KaraKpnuvioat avréy.* ‘To these we should probably add Mt 5+, Lk 2%, where Aphraates renders TapaKkdrnOncovrar and mapdkyovs according to the ordinary meaning of the verb, viz. to pray. Aphraates, as we know, made use ef the separated Gospels, and has prob- ably done so in the present case ; for Tatian, who was well acquainted with Greek, would hardly have fallen into such an error. Ss, it is true, translates mapd«dyoxs correctly in Lk 6*4, but makes a similar misrendering in “Lk 2”; possibly, as Hjelt suggests, Ss does not represent the original text of the Old Syriac either in Lk 6% or in Mt 54.
But, apart from these omissions and mistransla- tions, which clearly attest the independence, and therefore the priority, of Ss, a comparison of the two texts shows no less clearly that ‘in those cases in which they differ from one another, the former, as a rule, presents a form of text which appears to be the older and more original ’ (Hjelt, p. 155), while in many cases the rendering of T seems to be directly based on that of Ss, or of one similar to it. Space forbids a complete discussion of all the divergences of the two texts, but the following instance will afford sufficient illustration of this statement.
We have already seen from a comparison of the texts of Ss and Se in Mt 128-5 that the former gives a plain unbiassed rendering of the passayve, which is in marked contrast to that of Sc. But the
* Tatian apparently inferred that our Lord was actually cast
over the cliff, but was miraculously preserved from harm (Moesinger, pp. 180f., 212 ; Hamlyn Hill, Dissertation, p- 98).
variants of Se in this passage reflect, to a large extent, that desire to emphasize the virginity of our Lord’s mother, which is even more apparent in the Diatessaron—e.g. in the rendering (v."*) ante- quam data est viro for mplv } cuvedOetv, the omission of airs, v.1°; the rendering in sanctitate habitabat cum ea for ovk éylywoxev, v.°, and the transposition of v.?> and 74». Possibly the clearest indication of the priority of Ss to T is given by v.”, in which the rendering of T and (Sc) obviously presupposes that of Ss. Other passages which point to ‘I’s immedi- ate dependence on Ss, or on a text similar to it, are Mt 10° 14%, Lk 18, Jn 34» 3a, In Mt 10” Ss
renders civitatem by 122 ; while in Lk 10”, which ishere combined with the Matthew passage, themore
usual A248 is found. This difference of render-
ing, however, is preserved by T, who uses the latter word for civitatem in the introductory sen- tence which he has incorporated from Lk 10, but