Some comparison with the Greek is probable even before the time of Ephrem ; for, as to the apocryphal books, while he cites some of them (though not as Scripture), the apocryphal additions to Daniel and the books of Maccabees were not yet found in Syriac. Whoever translated any of these books from the Greek may easily have also compared with it in some places the books previously translated from the Hebrew.
7. Recensions. — In the book of Psalms this version exhibits many peculiarities. Either the translation of the Psalter must be a work independent of the Peshito in general, or else it has been strangely revised and al- tered, not only from the Greek, but also from liturgical use. Perhaps, indeed, the Psalms are a different ver- sion; and that in this respect the practice of the Syrian churches is like that of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England in using liturgically a different version of the book so much read ecclesiasti- calh'.
It is stated that, after the divisions of the Syrian Church, there were revisions of this one version by the Monophysites and by the Nestorians; probably it would
SYRIAC VERSIONS
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SYRIAC VERSIONS
be found, if the subject could be fully investigated, that there were in the hands of different parties copies in which the ordinarj' accidents of transcrii)ti()n hail in- troduced variations.
The Knrkaphensian recension mentioned bj' Bar-He- brajus was only known by name prior to the investiga- tions of Wiseman ; it is found in two iVISS. in the Vat- ican. In this recension .lol) comes before Samuel; and immediately after Isaiah the minor prophets. The Proverbs succeed Daniel. The arrangement in the New Test, is quite as singular. It begins with the Acts of the Apostles and ends with the four Gospels; while the epistles of James, Peter, and John come be- fore the fourteen letters of Paul. This recension pro- ceeded from the Monophysites. According to Assema- ni and Wiseman, the name signifies mountainous, be- cause it originated with those living about Mount Sa- gara, where there was a monastery of Jacobite Syrians, or simply because it was used by them. There is a pe- culiarity in the punctuation introduced by a leaning towards the Greek; but it is, as to its substance, the Peshito version.
B. The Syrinc Versionfj-om the Ilexaplar Greek Text. — 1. Orif/in and Character. — The only Syriac version of the Old Test, up to the 6th century was apparently the Peshito as above. The first definite intimation of a portion of the Old Test, translated from the Greek is through Moses Aghelreus. This SjTiac writer lived in the middle of the 6th century. He made a transla- tion of the Glaphyra of Cyril of Alexandria from Greek into Syriac; and, in the prefixed epistle, he speaks of the versions of the New Test, and tlie Psalter, "which Polj'carp (rest his soul I), the chorepiscopus, made in S3'riac for the faithful Xenaias, the teacher of Mabug, worthy of the memory of the good" (Assemani, Bihli- otheca Orienialis, ii, 83). We thus see that a Syriac version of the Psalms had a similar origin to the Phi- loxenian Syriac New Test. We know that the date of the latter was A.D. 508; the Psalter was probably a contemporaneous work. It is said that the Nestorian patriarch Marabba, A.D. 552, made a version from the Greek ; it does not appear to be in existence, so that, if ever it was completely executed, it was probably su- perseded b}' the Hexaplar version of Paul of Tela ; in- deed, Paul may have used it as the basis of his work, adding marks of reference, etc.
This version of Paul of Tela, a Monophysite, was made in the beginning of the 7th century, for its basis he used the Hexaplar Greek text — that is, the Sept., with the corrections of Origen, the asterisks, obeli, etc., and with the references to the other Greek versions. The Greek text at its basis agrees, for the most part, with the Codex Alexandrinus. But it often leans to the Vatican, and not seldom to the Complutensian texts. At other times it departs from all.
The Syro-Hexaplar version was made on the princi- ple of following the Greek, word for word, as exactly as possible. It contains the marks introduced by Origen, and the references to the versions of Aquila, Symma- chus, Theodotion, etc. In fact, it is from this Syriac version that we obtain our most accurate acquaintance with the results of the critical labors of Origen.
2. History. — Andreas Masiiis, in his edition of the book of Joshua (Antwerp, 1574), first used the results of this Syro-Hexaplar text ; for, on the authority of a MS. in his possession, he revised the Greek, introciucing asterisks and obeli, thus showing what Origen had done, how much he had inserted in the text, and what he had marked as not found in the Hebrew. The Syriac MS, used by Masius has long been lost; though in this day, after the recovery of the Codex Reuchlini of the Apoc- alypse (from which Erasmus first edited that book) by Prof. Delitzsch, it could hardly be a cause for surprise if this Syriac Codex should again be found.
It is from a SIS. in the Ambrosian librarj' at Milan that we possess accurate means of knowing this Syr- iac version. The MS. in question contains the Psalms,