SYRIAC VERSIONS
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SYRIAC VERSIONS
Graeco-Latinis et vptustioribus Latiiiis omnibus solus dis- cedit, et in GrKcorum partes transit." Some ])rool' that the text of the common printed I'cshito has been re- wrought will appear when it is compared with the Curetonian Syriac Gospels.
4. Minor Recensions. — Whether the whole of this ver- sion proceeded from the same translator has been ques- tioned. Not only may Michaelis be right in supposing a peculiar translator of the Epistle to the Hebrews, but also other parts may be from different hands ; this opin- ion will become more general the more the version is studied. Tlie revisions to which the version was sub- jected may have succeeded in part, but not wholly, in effacing the indications of a plurality of translators. The Acts and Epistles seem to be either raore recent than the Gospels, though far less revised; or else, if > coeval, far more corrected by later Greek MSS,
There is no sufficient reason for supposing that this , version ever contained the four catholic epistles and the Apocalypse, now absent from it, not only in the printed editions but also in the JISS. ■
Some variations in copies of the Peshito have been i regarded as if they might be styled ]\Ionophysite and Nestorian recensions ; but the designation would be far too definite, for the differences are not sufficient to war- rant the classification.
The MSS. of the Karhaphensian recension (as it has been termed) of the Peshito Old Test, contain also the New with a similar character of text.
B. The Curetonian Syriac Gospels. — This, although in reality but a variety of the Peshito, exhibits such mark- ed peculiarities that it may almost be called a distinct version.
1. History, Date, and Contents. — Among the IMSS. brought from the Nitrian monasteries in 1842, Dr. Cure- ton noticed a copy of the Gospels differing greatly from the common text ; and this is the form of text to which the name of " Curetonian Syriac" has been rightly ap- plied. Every criterion which proves the common Pe- shito not to exhibit a text of extreme antiquitj', equal- ly proves the early origin of this. The discovery is in fact that of the object which was wanted, the want of which had been previously ascertained. Dr. Cureton considers that the MS. of the Gospels is of the fifth cen- tury, a point in which all competent judges are proba- bly agreed. Some persons, indeed, have sought to de- preciate the text, to point out its differences from the Peshito, to regard all such variations as corruptions, and thus to stigmatize the Curetonian Sj'riac as a cor- rupt revision of the Peshito, barbarous in language and false in readings. This peremptory judgment is as rea- sonable as if the old Latin in the Codex Vercellensis were called an ignorant revision of the version of eJe- rome. The judgment that the Curetonian Syriac is older than the Peshito is not the peculiar opinion of Cureton, Alford, Tregelles, or Biblical scholars of the school of ancient evidence in this country, but it is also that of Continental scholars, such as Ewald, and appar- ently of the late Prof. Bleek.
The MS. contains Matt, i-viii, 22; x, 31-xxiii, 25; Mark, the four last verses only; John i, 1-42; iii, 6-vii, 37; xiv, 11-29; Luke ii, 48-ii"i, 16; vii, 33-xv, 21 ; xvii, 24-xxiv, 41. It would have been a thing of much value if a perfect copy of this version had come down to us ; but as it is, we have reason greatly to value the discov- ery of Dr. Cureton, which shows how trul}' those critics have argued who concluded that such a version must have existed, and who regarded this as a proved fact, ev^en when not only no portion of the version was known to be extant, but also when even the record of its exist- ence was unnoticed. For there is a record showing an acquaintance with this version, to which, as well as to the version itself, attention has been directed by Dr. Cureton. Bar-Salibi, bishop of Amida in the 12th cen- tury, in a passage translated by Dr. C. (in discussing the omission of throe kings in the genealogy in Mat- thew), says: "There is found occasionallj' a Syriac copy,
made out of the Hebrew, which inserts these three kings in the genealogj'; but afterwards it speaks of fourteen and not of seventeen generations, because four- teen generations has been substituted for seventeen by the Hebrews on account of their holding to the septena- ry number," etc. This shows that Bar-Salibi knew of a Syriac text of the Gospels in which Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah were inserted in Matt, i, 8 ; there is the same reading in the Curetonian Syriac: but this might have been a coincidence. But in ver. 17 the Curetonian text has, in contradiction to ver. H, fourteen generations and not seventeen; and so had the copy mentioned by Bar- Salibi: the former point might be a mere coincidence; the latter, however, shows such a kind of union in con- tradiction as proves the identity very convincingly. Thus, though this version was unknown in Europe prior to its discover}' by Dr. Cureton, it must in the 12th cen- tury have been known as a text sometimes found; and, as mentioned by the Monophysite bishop, it might be more in use among his co-religionists than among oth- ers. Perhaps, as its existence and use is thus recorded in the r2th century, some further discovery of Syriac MSS. may furnish us with another copy so as to supply the defects of the one happily recovered.