THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF SYRIAC MATTHEW

Steven Ring, (steven.ring@ieee.org)

Abstract: In this paper,1 historical, textual and linguistic methods have beenused to investigate the recently identified primitive Syriac text of Matthew'sgospel. Aspects touched upon include; A historical link between primitive

Syriac Matthew and an earlier Jewish tradition, Evidence of a meticulousSemitic textual tradition found in primitive Syriac Matthew and the Babylonian

Talmud, Translation artefacts visible in Greek Matthew betraying how it wastranslated from primitive Syriac Matthew, The relationship between Tatian'sDiatessaron and primitive Syriac Matthew. All of these aspects point to thevalue of primitive Syriac Matthew for further historical and theological researchinto Christian origins.

Contents

Preface

I. Introduction

II. First text – Matthew 7.12

III. Second text preamble – Luke 19.44

IV. Second text – Matthew 25.12

V. Discussions

§1 I gave a paper on the identification of early Syriac gospel texts at the SymposiumSyriacum in Granada last autumn.2 From this paper, it is useful to summarize how theexistence of primitive Syriac gospels can be deduced methodically from the availableevidence. That is to say;

1. The conventional 3-layer model of the Syriac gospel tradition; beginning withTatian's Diatessaron, then the Vetus Syra and then the Peshitta cannot explainthe four different Syriac text-types actually found in the Syriac gospelquotations of the early Syriac patristic authors. Logically therefore, anotherearly Syriac gospel text must once have existed.

1 © Steven Ring, all rights reserved. This paper was written for a seminar held at the University of Cardiff, Wales, on March 19th 2009 in the Centre for Late Antique Religion & Culture (CLARC).2 Ring 2008.

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2. Now, it so happens that textual examples from this fourth Syriac layer given inmy earlier paper agree with multiple gospel quotations and allusions found inPaul's letters3 and that certain other readings found in the same Syriac gospeltextual layer corroborate this data with independent historical and text-criticalevidence indicating that our unexplained Syriac layer was indeed primitive,older than the text of the Diatessaron. In this seminar, we will explore somenew evidence from translation artefacts, indicating that this primitive Syriac

text type was the archetype used to translate the gospels into Greek.

§2 The earlier paper also included a study of the initial layers in the development ofthe gospel text in Syriac, spanning approximately the first 400 years of the Christianera. In particular, a number of primitive Syriac gospels were identified for the firsttime, occupying the earliest layer of the Syriac gospel tradition. Recapping the list ofSyriac gospel textual layers discussed;4

• The primitive Syriac gospel texts, (before AD 50).

• Tatian, his Syriac Diatessaron gospel harmony, (c. AD 170).

• The Vetus Syra, representing the first attempts to revise the Syriac gospelstowards the Greek gospels, (c. 4th century AD).

• The Peshitta gospels, (c. AD 400).

A useful bi-product of this research is that it also demonstrates how Tatian composedhis Diatessaron in Syriac, because Tatian's Syriac text was patently constructed usinga pre-existent set of primitive Syriac gospels.

§3 In this way, I introduced the primitive Syriac gospels in my earlier paper and Idemonstrated how these separate gospel texts could be identified as the earliest Syriacgospels composed in a period before AD 50. I wonder therefore, whether the study ofthe primitive Syriac gospels will open a new field of scholarship relevant to the studyof Christian origins and perhaps even a new window on the life and teachings ofChrist. In any case, there is plenty of scope for discussion about the character of thesources, possible alternative interpretations of the historical data, the applicability ofthe methodologies used and indeed, the validity of these first tentative results.

§4 This seminar paper will follow-up my earlier conference paper with some morehistorical and linguistic studies. These studies mainly focus on the primitive Syriac

gospel of Matthew, a gospel text of considerable interest as we shall see.

In several places, I have offered reconstructions of early Syriac gospel readings.These are based upon historical and text-critical methods applied to the gospelallusions and quotations of early Syriac-speaking authors. I have used the mass ofearly Syriac quotations and a number of critical methods to judge the textual contentand the most likely wording of the primitive text. To facilitate discussion, all thesource materials used for the reconstructions have been edited and translated.

3 Outside of his letters, some of Paul's gospel quotations may only be extant in the remains of the primitive Syriac gospels.4 From Ring 2008, §VI-1.

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§5 To begin with, it will be as well for me to introduce the assumptions, generalapproaches and methods I have used in these studies and to admit how these differfrom the norm. Then, in the first textual study we will look at the historical context ofa verse selected from primitive Syriac Matthew and in the second textual study wewill focus on translation artefacts which obscure the meaning of a different verse fromthe same early gospel. The paper will then conclude with some thoughts anddiscussion topics, which can be pursued further if time permits.

I. Introduction

§I-1 The usual approach to the original language and dating of the gospels is to stateas an axiom that the Greek gospels represent their original composed form. A fewscholars however, have been interested in the obvious Semiticisms found in the Greekgospels. Unfortunately, even by this scholarly minority, these Semiticisms are usuallyregarded as the relics of a fragmented oral tradition. In my opinion, this Hellenisticand axiomatic approach to the Greek gospels has a number of drawbacks:

• In the original first-century AD Palestinian historical context of the gospels,western Hellenistic culture and the Greek language represented the culture andlanguage of an occupying power, not the oriental culture and Semiticlanguages of the indigenous Jewish population. Thus, in focusing only on theGreek gospels, a cultural disconnect is introduced and a language barrier isimmediately erected between these Hellenistic gospel texts and the events theydescribe.

• The Greek gospels are normally thought of as a product of the second centuryAD, composed around 100 years after the events they describe. Therefore,with a single stroke, a reliance solely on the Greek gospels begs the questionabout what happened in the first 100 years before they appeared and itrelegates the most important Christian documents to the status of an after-thought!

§I-2 In contrast, my initial assumptions were;

• That the gospels may have been originally written down between 10 and 20years of the events they describe and in Aramaic, a Semitic language whichChrist's early Jewish followers understood very well and used every day.

• That these early Semitic gospels written in Aramaic may have enjoyed acurrency and distribution throughout the Aramaic-speaking Near East,including in Antioch and Edessa in Syria where the Syriac dialect of Aramaicwas already established as a written and spoken language.

§I-3 Beginning from these alternative assumptions, it follows that traces of these earlyAramaic gospels might well be preserved in the Syriac gospel tradition and certaintextual anomalies found in the Greek gospels might also be explained as translationartefacts, or as cultural adaptations starting from an Aramaic original.

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§I-4 The historical and text-critical methods employed here have already beenoutlined in the previously mentioned conference paper.5 We will begin with source-critical and textual analyses of Matthew 7.12 to identify the earliest of two extantSyriac readings. A analysis of the subsequent history of these readings will then beused to infer the approximate dates when each Syriac reading appeared.

II. First text – Matthew 7.12

§II-1 In contrast to the later Greek translation of Matthew's gospel, primitive Syriac

Matthew contains sayings of Marya Isho` Meshiha6 which retain features in keepingwith the surrounding Jewish historical context. My first example text from primitive

Syriac Matthew is found in the context of his teaching in Matthew 7.12 and inMatthew 19.19 where he quoted from Hillel, a slightly earlier Jewish teacher, († c.AD 10). This particularly interesting text lends itself to historical analysis over a verylong period.7

§II-2 The long trail of sources for our historical survey of this verse can besummarized chronologically, as follows:

• Hillel the Jewish Sage and leader of the Sanhedrin, († c. AD 10).

• Marya Isho` Meshiha according to primitive Syriac Matthew, (c. AD 408).

• The Didache, (c. AD 100).

• Aristides, Apology, (c. AD 150).

• The Syriac Peshitta Old Testament; The book of Tobit, (translated c. AD 150).

• Tatian, The Diatessaron Syriac gospel harmony, (c. AD 170).

• Clement of Alexandria, († c. AD 214) Stromata

• Mani, The Manichaean Gospel of Life, (c. AD 242).

• Aphrahat the Persian Sage († c. AD 345), The Demonstrations.

• Ephrem of Nisibis († AD 373), Madrashe.

• The Liber Graduum, (c. AD 400).

• Menander the Dramatist, (c. 342 – 291 BC), the Syriac translation of hisSayings, (c. AD 400 ~ 500).

• Philoxenus bishop of Mabbug, († AD 523) the Homilies.

5 Ring 2008, section §16 This is the Aramaic name and title ‘The LORD, Isho` Christ’ which lies behind the Latin version.7 This saying also had a long history before Hillel. See Leviticus 19.18 and the Greek and Chinese sources noticed by Resch, (Resch 1905, pp. 132 – 134).8 See an analysis leading to a date before AD 50 for primitive Syriac Matthew in my earlier paper, (Ring 2008).

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• The Babylonian Talmud, (c. AD 550).

• Romanus the Physician, a monk from Qartamin who took the nameTheodosius and in AD 887 became Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch (†AD 896)9. His Letter to Eleazar, bishop of Cyros.

§II-3 Firstly, there are the words of the leader of the Sanhedrin and Jewish sage Hillel,(† c. AD 10) who was an earlier contemporary of Christ. If Hillel ever wrote down histeachings in a book, we no longer possess it. We only have some of his wordspreserved in later Jewish writings. One of Hillel's teachings is important for our studyhere, it survives in Hebrew within the Babylonian Talmud, in the tractate on theSabbath observance, Shabbat,10 11 folio 31a, (Goldschmidt 1897, p. 388, lines 6 – 8):

Kl(d .wl rm) *hyryyg llh ynpl )blk )yh wz - dyb(t )l Krbxl yns

rwmg lyz )wh h#wryp - Kdy)w hlwk hrwth

The following variants are found in Goldschmidt's text and apparatus, (Ibid.):Line 1: wl rm) > hyl rm);12

Line 2: )yh wz > Apparatus M59 wnyyh;

‘He thereupon came to Hillel, and the latter accepted him. He told him: “What

is hateful to thee, do not unto thy fellow; this is the whole law. All the rest is a

commentary to this law; go and learn it.” ’13

§II-4 In the same way as we no longer possess the works of Hillel, neither do we stillpossess any copies of primitive Syriac Matthew from the first Christian centuries.However, we shall now edit and distinguish two early readings from the text of SyriacMatthew from the evidence of multiple attestations by Syriac patristic authors.

According to Aphrahat († c. AD 345), Ephrem of Nisibis († AD 373), the Liber

Graduum (c. AD 400), Philoxenus of Mabbug († AD 523) and Theodosios, SyrianOrthodox patriarch of Antioch († AD 896), in Matthew 7.12 primitive Syriac

Matthew begins with a command of Christ based around Hillel's saying.

9 These biographical details are taken from Marsh 1927, p. 145.10 The whole of the Babylonian Talmud has been edited on-line, see this excerpt on the following page: http://patrologia.narod.ru/hebraica/babli/shabbath.htm11 Part of this text has also been edited on-line as part of Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, see http://cal1.cn.huc.edu/, select 'Text browse,' Babylonian Aramaic, reference: 71002 BT Sab, Subtext: 01031, beginning line: 0103112912 This variant is not Hebrew, rather it may preserve a trace from an Aramaic version with hl.13 Translation by Isaac Wise, (Rodkinson & Wise 1903 Volume 1, p. 50).

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A reconstruction of primitive Syriac Matthew 7.12 derived from these sources,14 onceread as follows:

.dB(t )L krBXL )N]s kYL(d mdMw

.)$NY8NB kL nwdB(Nd tN) )Bcd kY)w

.nwhL dB( tN) p) )NKh“And a thing which is hateful for you, to your companion you shall not do. And

as that you wish that the children of men will do to you, likewise also, you shall

do to them.”

Some of these words of Isho` found in primitive Syriac Matthew were apparentlyquoted from Hillel; Certainly by comparing the two texts below, the similarity of theAramaic quotation of Isho` found in primitive Syriac Matthew to the Hebrew text ofHillel's words is very striking:

Hillel: dyb(t )l Krbxl yns Kl(dIsho`: .dB(t )L krBXL )N]s kYL(d mdMw

A clearly visible textual relationship exists between the Hebrew and Syriac versionsof this text. This close textual relationship allows us to make several importantdeductions:

• The Syriac reading bears such a close textual relationship to the Hebrew, itsuggests that the Syriac text of Isho` and the Hebrew text of Hillel are both theproducts of meticulously transmitted textual (not oral) traditions from a singlesource.

• Therefore, using a source-critical argument, we can tentatively identify thisSyriac reading as the original reading of primitive Syriac Matthew. (Using thesame reasoning, a variant Syriac reading introduced below, looks to be later.)

< Aphrahat Demonstration XXIII,15 Philoxenus Homily IX:16

.dB(t )L krBXL )N]s kYL(d mdMw‘And a thing which is hateful for you, to your companion you shall not do.’

Context: Both Aphrahat and Philoxenus place this quotation from Hillel in the contextof their comments on Matthew 19.19. Furthermore, the second time he mentions thesewords,17 Philoxenus cites them explicitly from the lips of Isho`.18

14 All the sources used in this reconstruction are cited and translated below.15 Wright 1869, p. 498.18.16 Budge 1894, Volume 1, pp. 333.7, 345.12.17 Budge 1894, Volume 1, p. 345.9.18 In several ways Philoxenus exhibits a direct influence from the Liber Graduum in these Homilies.

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~ Ephrem of Nisibis, Madrashe XI on Abraham Kidonaya:19

.dB(t )L krBXL )Ns] kYL(d lKd )tY(rtd dwXLB wh mY$rd dh[S‘..the laid down testimony is only of the opinion, that all that is hateful for you,

to your companion you shall not do.’

Context: In this source, there is no indication of a biblical context.

~ The Liber Graduum20 15.18:21

.. tN) )Bcd kY)w .dB(t )L krBXL kYL( )Nsd mdMd yhw‘And that, “A thing which is hateful for you, to your companion you shall not

do. And as that you wish..”.’ etc.

Context: The Liber Graduum places this saying in the context of Matthew 7.12.

~ There is also an allusion to this verse in the Liber Graduum 3.10:22

oYBcd kY) )L) ;nwhYL( )NSd mdM )ND8X)L nwNh nwdB(N )Lw

.)ND8X)L nwNh nwdB(N )NKh ;)$NY8NB nwhL nwdB(Nd‘And they shall not do to others a thing which is hateful for them, but as that

they wish that the children of men would do to them, thus they shall do to

others.’

Context: The Liber Graduum contains this allusion in the context of Matthew 7.12.

~ Philoxenus Letter to Patrick:23 24

dB(]t )L krBXL )N]S[ kYL(d mdM wh[‘That a thing which is hateful for you, to your companion you shall not do.’

Context: Philoxenus places our reading in the context of Matthew 7.12.

~ Philoxenus Homily XIII:25

.dB(t )L krBXL kYL( )Nsd mdMd yh[d

19 Lamy 1889, c. 817.11 & Leloir 1958, #926.20 Kmosko has already mentioned the early provenance of this reading in his footnotes (Kmosko 1926, cc. 145 note 7, 373 note 1 and 923 note 1). He mentions the work of Gotthold Resch, (Resch 1905, p. 135 ff.) and he notices that this saying occurs in the Didache 1, 2 and also in Theophilus ‘Ad Autol.’ II, 34 and in a Latin version of the Didascalia Apostolorum edited by Hauler 3, 12 and in the writings of the mid second century author Clement of Alexandria; Stromata II, XXIII, 139.21 Kmosko 1926, c. 376.1.22 Kmosko 1926, c. 65.13.23 Lavenant 1963, p. 102.11.24 According to the footnote in Lavenant’s critical edition of Philoxenus’ letter to Patrick, (Lavenant 1963, p. 103, footnote 39) he mentions that this reading was also studied in Richard Hugh Connolly 1934, ‘A negative form of the Golden Rule in the Diatessaron,’ Journal of Theological Studies 35, OUP, pp. 351-357 and that it also occurs in Ephrem, (see above) and in Philoxenus’ homilies (see above) as edited by Budge, (Budge 1894, volume 1, pp. 333.7, 345.12 & 607.13).25 Budge 1894, Volume 1, p. 607.13.

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‘That is, “A thing which is hateful for you, to your companion you shall not

do.” ’

Context: In this source, there is no indication of a biblical context.

~ Theodosius, Letter to Eleazar:26

.dB(t )L krBXL )N*s kYL(d mdM‘A thing which is hateful for you, to your companion you shall not do.’

Context: In this source, there is no indication of a biblical context.That Theodosius quoted this reading, demonstrates the remarkable longevity andcontinuing influence of the Primitive Syriac gospel text type, in the Syrian Orthodoxmonasteries and even at the very top of the Syrian Orthodox church hierarchy until atleast the ninth century AD.

§II-5 Now moving forward in time to review the evidence of Greek patristic authorsand anonymous Greek works of the second century. Due to the obviously primitivesocial structure of the kind of Christianity it reflects, the Didache may belong to thelate first, or the very early part of the second century AD;27 I quote twice from thisGreek work in English translation28:

‘The way of life is this: “Thou shalt love first the Lord thy Creator, and

secondly thy neighbour as thyself; thou shalt do nothing to any man that thou

wouldst not wish to be done to thyself.” ’29

‘You are to have no malicious designs on a neighbour. You are to cherish no

feelings of hatred for anybody;’30

Here, both these texts include the negative aspects from Hillel's saying and the secondtext even mentions hatred, a word found in Hillel's saying. These allusions indicatethat the gospel text at Matthew 7.12 current when the Didache was composed, agreemuch better with the text of primitive Syriac Matthew, than they do with the text ofGreek Matthew.

§II-6 The same reading is also alluded to in a Greek defence of Christianity written byAristeides for the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius who reigned from AD 138 to AD161. The Apology of Aristeides survives in Greek and in Syriac translation;

In Syriac translation, the Apology of Aristeides survives in a unique manuscript, SinaiSyriac 16. This is a very neatly written Estrangela manuscript of the 6th or 7th centuryand the Apology can be found on ff. 56a – 68a. The words in question are found on f.65b, column 2, line 22 and f. 66a, column 1, lines 23 – 25:

26 Marsh 1927, p. 146.12-132.5.27 A date for the Didache as early as c. AD 80 has been proposed by Stevenson & Frend 1987, p. 375.28 Staniforth, Louth & Radice 1987, pp. 191 f.29 Didache §130 Didache §2

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.. )KLM[ w) oYd )NY+SD8K

.oYr(S[ )L 4}N)L .)]ND8X) nwhL nwdB{(Nd oYBc[ )Ld mdmw“The Christians O king ... And the thing that they would not wish others to do to

them, they do not visit on anyone.”

I also quote from a recent English translation from these phrases in the Apology madeby others31:

‘Now the Christians, O king, … They do not unto other that which they would

not have done unto themselves.’32

§II-7 The first evidence of editing of this saying of Christ in Syriac form, occurs inthe second century AD. We will now review the second-century Syriac sources to findout how our text was adapted.

The Peshitta Old Testament Syriac version of Tobit was translated into Syriac,presumably with the rest of the Old Testament around AD 150.33 Following theappearance of Tobit in Syriac, multiple textual witnesses to a certain Syriac gospeltext, also show a variant Syriac reading with:

tN) )Nsd ‘that you hate’ instead of the original Syriac reading identified above:

)Ns kYL(d ‘which is hateful for you’.

This modified wording was probably introduced to the Syriac gospel tradition byTatian in his Syriac Diatessaron gospel harmony, c. AD 170.

The Peshitta Old Testament: Tobit 4.15, (translated into Syriac c. AD 150):

.dB(t 4N)L )L ;tN) )Ns[d )M w[hw‘And that which you hate, you will not do to a man.’

A reading found in the Liber Graduum 7.134 which is thought by the present author toreflect the reading of Tatian's Diatessaron:

.. tN) )Bcd kY)w .krBXL dB(t )L tN) )Nsd mdMw‘And a thing that you hate, you shall not do to your companion, and as you

wish..’ etc.

Context: Here in the Liber Graduum, the context suggests that Matthew 7.12 was thelocation for our reading.

~ The Liber Graduum 30.2635:

31 Stevenson & Frend 1987, p. 53.32 Apology XV.3, 533 The excerpt from Tobit is edited below. A translation date in the second century AD is estimated based upon grammatical developments which occurred in Syriac at about that time, see for example Brekelmans, Sæbø & Haran 1996, p. 588.34 Kmosko 1926, c. 145.10.35 Kmosko 1926, c. 921.23.

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;krBXL tY)d mdM bStw grt )Lw ;)rQw$ twdhS dhSt )Lw ..

.tN) nwhL dB(t )L )$NY8NB kL nwdB(Nd tN) )NSd mdMw

.. oM khL) )YrML mXrw‘.. and you shall not bear false witness, and you shall not covet and take a thing

that is your companion’s and something that you would hate the children of

men to do to you, you shall not do to them. And love the Lord your God from .. ’

Context: Notice how this reading mixes elements from Syriac Matthew and fromGreek Matthew in Matthew 7.12, indicating again, that our reading was originallylocated in this context.

§II-8 Again, sitting well with the wording of other second-century AD versions of oursaying, Clement of Alexandria († c. AD 214)36 also quotes our saying in his Stromata:

‘This Scripture has briefly showed, when it says, “What thou hatest, thou shalt

not do to another.” ’37

§II-9 Francis Crawford Burkitt pointed out that a similar saying also crops up in theSyriac translation of the Sayings of Menander the Sage.38 This ‘Menander the Sage’may perhaps be identified with Menander the Greek Dramatist, c. 342 – 291 BC.Either way, a corpus of moral sayings drawn from Menander's works similar to theSyriac text edited by Land was apparently once in circulation in Greek39. Themanuscript edited by Land is taken from an ancient Syriac manuscript, LondonBritish Library Add. 14,65840 written in an Estrangela script typical of the 7th centuryAD. From the evidence of the other extant translations, the translation of Greek worksinto Syriac began in earnest towards the end of the 4th century AD.41 In the Syriactranslation of the Sayings of Menander, the saying in question runs as follows42:

.dB(ML )Bct )L krBXL tN) ;)Ns kYL(d mdM lK‘Everything that is hateful for you, you shall not wish to be done to your

companion.’

Again, we notice that the wording shows interference between the two differentversions of our saying found in primitive Syriac Matthew and in Tatian's Diatessaron.This evidence suggests that the translation of Menander may have occurred whilst theDiatessaron was in regular use.

§II-10 The two lost earlier Syriac gospel texts of Matthew, namely; primitive Syriac

Matthew and Tatian's Diatessaron which both contained our reading, began to loose36 See Stevenson & Frend 1987, p. 374.37 Clement of Alexandria, Stromata II, XXIII, 139.38 Burkitt 1904, volume 1, p. 110. 39 See a brief description of Menander the Dramatist given on-line: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menander40 Wright 1872, pp. 1154 – 1160.41 These early translations from Greek into Syriac include the works of Eusebius of Caesarea, Josephus, Basil, John Chrysostom, Theodore and many other important Greek authors.42 Wright 1872, p. 1159, c. 1, & Land 1862, Syriac text p. 69 line 13.

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popularity, or face active suppression in the 5th century in favour of the first andsecond attempts to translate the four gospels from Greek into Syriac, namely; TheVetus Syra, (of which there are two surviving fragmentary codices, the Curetonian43

and the Sinai44), and the Peshitta gospels,45 (which are still used in the Syriac churchestoday). To a large extent, both the Vetus Syra and the Peshitta gospels, reflect theGreek text of the gospels, and perhaps for this reason, neither of these Syriac gospelversions retain our reading, hence:

> [Sinai codex] Curetonian codex, Peshitta Matthew & Luke omit.

§II-11 That the Manichaeans adapted and used the Syriac Diatessaron is an entirestudy in its own right. However, that a similar saying was also inherited by theManichaeans from the Syriac gospel tradition can be demonstrated from the TurfanManichaean texts; According to a Manichaean letter preserved in the Parthianlanguage46:

‘And do not do yourself what you detest in another person.’

§II-12 In my opinion, this primitive Syriac Matthew reading of Matthew 7.12 is ofgreat significance because it retains the authentic Jewish historical context of the lifeand teaching of Isho`, illustrating how his teaching related to the sayings of Hillel, aslightly earlier Jewish contemporary of his, who taught in Jerusalem and died aroundAD 10. The long historical attestation of the primitive Syriac version of our readingwhere Christ quotes and comments upon Hillel, leaves very little doubt that theprimitive Syriac reading is both original and authentic. Even in the early Greekpatristic tradition, this reading was clearly important. It is twice alluded to in theDidache, a Greek document originally composed in the late first century and it isalluded to again by Aristeides, a Christian apologist who lived in the mid secondcentury and yet again by Clement, bishop of Alexandria, who wrote towards the endof the second century.

§II-13 Summarizing the two analytical methods used here: A source-critical argumentbased upon a Hebrew text was used to tentatively identify the original Syriac reading,then a historical analysis showed that the other Syriac reading appeared in sourcesdatable no earlier than the second century AD. Therefore, both the source-criticalanalysis and the historical analysis agree that the original Syriac reading of Matthew7.12 indicated above, can probably be dated to the first century AD.

§II-14 Having demonstrated how primitive Syriac Matthew sits well in the originalfirst-century AD historical and linguistic context of the gospels, we will now exploreone of the most fascinating ways that the original Semitic language of the gospels isbetrayed by translation artefacts found in the Greek version.

43 The Curetonian codex of the Vetus Syra; London, British Library Ms Add. 14,451.44 The Sinai codex of the Vetus Syra; Sinai, Saint Catherine Monastery, Syriac Ms 30.45 There is an edition of the Peshitta gospels based upon 41 manuscripts, see Gwilliam & Pusey 1901.46 See http://www.gnosis.org/library/epistmar.html

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III. Second text, preamble – Luke 19.44

§III-1 Before approaching our second text from primitive Syriac Matthew, we digressbriefly into the gospel of Luke, to introduce a Syriac idiom: ‘to know visitation’included in a saying of Christ about the fate of Jerusalem which is found in Luke 19:

“42..Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now

they are hid from your eyes. 43 For the days shall come upon you, when your

enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on

every side, 44 and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and

they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know

the time of your visitation.”47

§III-2 According to the Sinai codex of the Vetus Syra at Luke 19.44:48

.yKNrw(Sd )MwY yt(dY )Ld pLX p)K l( p)K yKB nwQB$N )Lw‘and they will not leave in you a stone upon a stone in place that you did not

know the day of your visitation.’

> Aphrahat, Demonstration XXI 49, where this verse in Luke reads:

.h[twBrd )MwY t(dY )Ld .p)K l( p)K h[B qBt$t )L‘It will not be left in it, a stone upon a stone, that she did not know the day of

her greatness.’

~ Curetonian codex of the Vetus Syra:

.yKtwBrd )MwY yt(dY )Ld pLX p)K l( p)K yKB nwQB$N )Lw‘and they will not be left in you a stone upon a stone in place that you did not

know the day of your greatness.’

~ Peshitta:50

.yKNr(wSd )NBz yt(dY )Ld pLX ;p)K l( p)K yKB nwQB$N )Lw‘and they will not leave in you a stone upon a stone in place that you did not

know the time of your visitation.’51

§III-3 The form of this verse found in the Sinai codex of the Vetus Syra and thesimilar form found in Peshitta contain the idiom ‘knowing visitation’. In Syriac, theidiom ‘knowing visitation’ can mean either; ‘knowing a deed’, ‘knowing a fact’ or ‘torecognise’ something.52 However, a closer study of this idiom, reveals it has twouseful linguistic properties:

47 This is edited from the Revised Standard Version.48 Lewis 191049 Wright 1869, p. 412.1650 Gwilliam & Pusey 190151 Compare Matthew 24.2 and its parallel in Mark13.2 where Christ spoke about the Temple in a similar way.52 Syriac definitions of this idiom are noticed by Payne-Smith 1903, p. 369 and Brockelmann 1928, p. 488 c. 2 meaning #6.

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• This idiom is archaic, it appears only in the earliest Syriac sources. Forexample, apart from the two biblical passages cited here, it also appears inAphrahat's Demonstration XIII on the Sabbath53 and in some works attributedto Mar Narsai and Mar Jacob of Serug, (see the next section).

• This appears to be a Syriac idiom,54 unknown in other Aramaic dialects. Itdoes not appear at all in the lexica of Palestinian Aramaic55 and it iscompletely unknown in Biblical Aramaic56 and Hebrew57. However, anyattempt to isolate an idiom to any one dialect is almost always an argument

from silence, so some caution is justified here.

§III-4 For these reasons, the idiom ‘knowing visitation’ may be an importantlinguistic marker, useful to identify the presence of an early Aramaic source written inthe Syriac (i.e. an eastern) Aramaic dialect.

§III-5 We now notice several other Greek New Testament passages which may alsoowe something to our Syriac idiom. The text of Greek Luke 19.44 quoted above,contains this Syriac idiom ‘knowing visitation’ written out literally, rather thantranslated. This indicates that Greek Luke is a secondary text, translated from anAramaic source and most likely from a Syriac source. The semantic debris of thesame Syriac idiom crops up elsewhere in the Greek New Testament, inviting furtherstudy, as follows:

• Matthew 7.23 and a loose parallel in Luke 13.25, 27 which include twodifferent meanings of this Syriac idiom in the same context; ‘knowing a deed’and not ‘recognising’ someone.

• Matthew 25.12 analysed in the next section.

• Revelation 2.2, 2.19, 3.1, 3.8 & 3.15 where in all five of these texts, the phrase‘I know your works’ may have made more sense if it had been translated fromour Syriac idiom into Greek with an alternative Syriac meaning, ‘I recogniseyou’.58

IV. Second text – Matthew 25.12

§IV-1 Having introduced the Syriac idiom, ‘to know visitation’ and its range ofmeanings, we can now use this idiom to investigate the wording of primitive Syriac

53 Brockelmann 1928, p. 488 c. 2 notices this idiom in Aphrahat, (Parisot 1904, p. 549 line 10).54 This idiom is not extant in Greek, see Louw & Nida 1988, 1989 volume 1, p. 453, section 34.51.55 This idiom is not noticed by Jastrow 1971, nor by Sokoloff 1990, nor by Fitzmyer & Harrington 1994 who are all important lexicographers of the Qumran and Palestinian Aramaic dialects over the period 200 BC until the 6th century AD.56 Nor is this idiom noticed at all by Rosenthal 1963.57 This idiom is not noticed in Hebrew either by Gesenius 1859, nor by Jastrow 1971.58 The Apocalypse appears to have been written in Aramaic, so it is remarkable that this book remained unknown in the Syriac tradition before AD 508, when it may have been edited into the Syriac New Testament for the first time by Philoxenus, bishop of Mabbug!

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Matthew 25.12. This verse is part of the punch-line from the parable of the TenVirgins, (Matthew 25.1-13). In primitive Syriac Matthew, this parable is veryinteresting, as the whole parable is quite different to the version of it found in Greek

Matthew. However, since verse 12 speaks volumes about the relationship betweenprimitive Syriac Matthew and Greek Matthew, so it makes good sense to study thisverse first.

In the RSV English translation from Greek Matthew, the context of Matthew 25.12reads as follows:

“10And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready

went in with him to the marriage feast; and the door was shut. 11Afterward the

other maidens came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us.’ 12 But he replied,

‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’, 13 Watch therefore, for you know

neither the day nor the hour.”

At once, we observe that verse 12 in Greek Matthew sits awkwardly in this context,because in the Greek Matthew version of the parable, all the maidens are amongstthose invited to the wedding and so, even if the bridegroom was displeased with them,he most likely knew who they were. As we shall now see, our puzzlement over thisverse can be explained from a study of the wording found in Syriac Matthew.

§IV-2 Mar Narsai († c. AD 502) was an eminent Syriac scholar whose activitiesspanned much of the 5th century AD. He was the headmaster of the Persian School ofEdessa and later, he became the first director of the East Syrian School of Nisibis.Whilst Mar Narsai was headmaster at the Persian School in Edessa, one his pupilswas another eminent Syriac poet: Mar Jacob, bishop of Serug († AD 521). These twomen held quite different theological views and later on, each of them came to bevenerated by different parts of the Syriac church; Mar Narsai is venerated as a saintand doctor by the Church of the East, whereas Mar Jacob is venerated as a saint anddoctor by the Syrian Orthodox Church. So it is intriguing that the reading known toMar Narsai is supported by a trace of the same reading also found in the works of MarJacob of Serug. Using the sources edited below the reading of primitive Syriac

Matthew, verse 12 can be reconstructed along the following lines:

!oYKYNr(w]S )N(dY[ )Ld oYhL yNP

‘He replied to them, “I have not known your visitation!” ’

~ Narsai:59

!oYKYNr(w]S )N(dY[ )Ld oYhL yNP oM[L‘Why did he reply to them, “I have not known your visitation!”?’

~ Narsai:60

: oY8B[G oYrt]L oYN) 4rP )ND8(w]SB]w‘And by visitations he separated them into two elects.’

59 Mingana 1905, 1.246.10 and Siman 1984, p. 9.560 Mingana 1905, 1.245.18 and Siman 1984, p. 8.12

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~ Narsai:61

: oYhY8Nr(w]SB )X$M y8+LXd )t]MY]KXB‘With the wise who mix the oil with their visitations.’

~ Narsai:62

: oYhY8Nr(w]SB )X$M =L]Xd )t]MY]KXB‘With the wise who mix the oil with their visitations.’

~ Narsai,63 Jacob of Serug:64

;oYhY8Nr(w]Sd )MLw$ )LM )Br )$X‘Great suffering filled the end of their visitations.’

Here, both Narsai the master and Jacob his pupil refer to the foolish virgins inidentical ways.

§IV-3 Even though the Sinai codex of the Vetus Syra, the Peshitta and Greek

Matthew at Matthew 25.12 all read, ‘I do not know you’, we recall that the Syriac

idiom oYKYNr(w]S )N(dY[ )L ‘I do not know your visitation’ can also mean ‘I do

not recognize your actions,’ or ‘I do not recognize your works’. Mar Narsai alsointerprets this saying in this alternative Syriac way ‘know your works’;

< Narsai:65

: nwKY*LM( )N(d[Y )Ld‘I have not known your works!’

~ Narsai:66

: oYKLY]d )LM8(L )N([dY )Ld‘I have not known your works.’

~ Narsai:67

: oYKB]d )LM8(L )N([dY )Ld‘I have not known the works which are in you.’

§IV-4 Another interpretation of this early Syriac idiom, (the one which also ended upin the Greek version of Matthew 25), can also be found in the Syriac gospel tradition: > Ephrem:68

61 Siman 1984, p. 12.1662 Mingana 1905, 1.249.763 Mingana 1905, 1.246.2164 Birmingham, Mingana Ms 546, dated 1929, f. 68a.1.8. The homily quoted here has not been edited.65 Mingana 1905, 1.324.1866 Siman 1984, p. 17.1467 Mingana 1905, 1.253.168 Assemani & Benedicti 1743, p. 308.9

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.)tYD8d )LL nrM rM]) oY8tN) oM[ oYKL )N) 9rY[ )Ld‘ “I do not know who you are.” Our Lord said to the ignorant women.’

~ Ephrem:69

.oY8tN) oM )N) 9rY[ )Ld‘That I do not know who you are.’

~ Ephrem,70 Jacob of Serug:71

oYKL )N) 9rY[ )L‘I do not know you.’

> The Sinai codex72 of the Vetus Syra:73

.oYK8L )N(dY )Ld oYK8L )NrM) oYM) rM)w )N( oYd wh‘He then answered and said, “Amen I say to you, I have not known you.” ’

~ Ephrem:74

)NtXd hLQ oYhL yN]P oYKL )N) 9rY[ )L‘ “I do not know you.” The bridegroom's voice replied to them.’

~ Narsai:75

!)NtXd hLQ oYhL yNP oYKL )N(rY[ )L‘ “I do not know you.” The bridegroom's voice replied to them.’

~ Narsai:76

!)NtXd )LQ )w]h yNP oYKL )N) 9rY] )L‘ “I do not know you.” The bridegroom's voice was replying.’

~ Jacob of Serug:77

!)KLM )NtX oYhL yN]P oYKL )N]) 9rY[ )L‘ “I do not know you.” The royal bridegroom replied to them.’

> Jacob of Serug:78

69 Leloir 1958, #297 excerpt.70 Leloir 1958, #30071 Olinder 1937, p. 6.10, 1172 This verse is not extant in the Curetonian codex of the Vetus Syra, (Cureton 1858).73 Lewis 191074 Assemani & Benedicti 1743, p. 306.4775 Mingana 1905, 1.245.1276 Siman 1984, p. 8.377 Birmingham, Mingana Ms 546, dated 1929, f. 68a.1.6. The homily quoted here has not been edited.

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.oY8KL )N) 9rY[ )L mwtM oMd‘I am not knowing you ever.’

> Peshitta:79

.oYKL )N) 9dY] )Ld oYK8L )N) rM) oYM) oYhL rM)w )N( oYd wh‘He then answered and said to them, “Amen I say to you, I have not known

you.” ’

~ Jacob of Serug,80 Jacob of Serug:81

.oYtN) oM[ oYKL )N) 9rY[ )L )NtX rM[)‘The Bridegroom said, “I don't know who you are.” ’

§IV-5 When an idiom having a number of different meanings comes to be translated,the translator is forced to select which meaning is going to be translated into the newlanguage. Thus, semantic information can be lost when an idiom is translated intoanother language. Looked at another way, this information loss can be used to workout the language of the source text used by the translator and the language of theimage text. This technique to deduce the source text is in fact a text-critical method.82

Since it has just been shown that semantic information from the different shades ofmeaning contained in this one Aramaic idiom from primitive Syriac Matthew havebeen lost in Greek Matthew, it can also be deduced that the reading in primitive

Syriac Matthew was probably the original reading and conversely, that the reading inGreek Matthew was probably a text translated from the Syriac.

§IV-6 So, if we go along with this deduction for a minute, does the passage inquestion from Matthew chapter 25 make any more sense when read it in Syriac? Wellyes, I think it does. Here is the passage from the RSV we started with, corrected withthe help of primitive Syriac Matthew:

“10And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready

went in with him to the marriage feast; and the door was shut. 11Afterward the

other maidens came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us.’ 12 But he replied,

‘Truly, I say to you, I do not recognize your works,’ 13 Watch therefore, for you

know neither the day nor the hour.”

In the uncorrected version of this passage, the spotlight is on whether the bridegroomknew who the virgins were, which seems awkward in this context. However if thesame text is corrected from the Syriac, notice how the spotlight has shifted toilluminate the behaviour of the virgins who had displeased the bridegroom, an ideamore congruent with the wider context. Firstly, a text-critical approach to this passage

78 Olinder 1937, p. 6.8. The manuscripts included in Olinder's edition carry several different spelling and pointing variations of this reading.79 Gwilliam & Pusey 190180 Bedjan 1906, p. 379.3 & compare p. 380.1381 Birmingham, Mingana Ms 546, dated 1929, f. 67b.1.3. The homily quoted here has not been edited.82 See Ring 2008, section §1-6.

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has pointed out that Matthew's gospel was originally written in Aramaic and secondly,it has brought us a step closer to understanding what the parable of the Ten Virginsoriginally meant.

V. Discussions

§V-1 Using textual examples we have explored a number of topics which may be ofinterest for further discussion;

• An authentic historical context for primitive Syriac Matthew in the milieu ofJewish culture in 1st century Palestine. What might primitive Syriac gospels

have to offer for the study of Christian origins?

• How primitive Syriac Matthew relates to meticulous written traditions inHebrew and in Aramaic.

• The abundance of Syriac patristic sources and their very consistent quotationsfrom primitive Syriac Matthew over nearly 900 years.

• How Greek Matthew appears to have been translated from primitive Syriac

Matthew. What does this say about the relative historical value of Greek

Matthew and primitive Syriac Matthew?

• The information which was lost when Greek Matthew was translated fromprimitive Syriac Matthew; The translator deliberately omitted a quotation byHillel the Jewish Sage and he may have accidentally corrupted the punch-lineof a parable. But, why might the Greek translator have chosen to omit Hillel'swords in primitive Syriac Matthew...?

• Can a Syriac idiom like ‘knowing visitation,’ be used to identify the originallanguage of other works like Greek Luke and the Apocalypse?

§V-2 In the discussion part of this seminar and afterwards, a number of very goodquestions were asked about the possible existence and nature of any primitive Syriac

gospel texts. In particular:

• Could the alleged text of primitive Syriac Matthew 7.12 have an alternativeexplanation? For example, could the patristic quotations of this verse haveintroduced textual matter from the Babylonian Talmud, without this Talmudicmaterial ever being part of a Syriac gospel text?

• How can it be suggested that gospel texts existed at such an early date in anylanguage, if these gospel texts are never mentioned in the New Testament?

• If the primitive Syriac gospels did exist, what form did they take? Were theyseparate documents? How consistent were their texts compared to the Greekones?

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• How would the existence of any primitive Syriac gospels relate to theestablished scholarly view that Mark was the earliest gospel text?

§V-3 Not all of these questions can be answered adequately at this time, however hereare a few observations:

• What may make the intrusion of Talmudic textual material into the Syriacpatristic quotations of Syriac Matthew 7.12 less likely, is the manner in whichPhiloxenus introduced one of his quotations which includes Hillel's words.83

Here Philoxenus explicitly attributes a quotation including Hillel's words toIsho`, in the context of his conversation with the ‘rich young ruler’ found inMatthew 19.19. Also, contextual details have been provided for each patristicquotation edited above in sections §II-4 and §II-7 of this paper.

• Whether the gospels are mentioned in the New Testament is a matter ofinterpretation. One interpretation of a passage found in Paul's letters indicatesthat the gospels did exist in written form at an early date; Certain, ‘sacredwritings able to instruct someone about salvation through faith in Christ’ arementioned in 2 Timothy 3.15, and it is difficult to identify any writings otherthan the gospels which would exactly fit this description.

• Initial research has concentrated on passages which have few, or no goodparallels in the other gospels. This approach has been used to investigate thenumber, sequence and dates of gospel texts found in the early Syriac patristictradition. Later on, investigation of parallel passages may shed more light onthe form of the early Syriac gospels, whether they were separate and distinctgospels, or a single book of some kind. This question remains to be studied.

• Marcan primacy is an established concept in the analysis of the Greek gospels,but it is not yet clear to me what role Mark's gospel played in the early Syriacgospel tradition. This too, is a matter for future study.

_______

Bibliography – printed books

Assemani, Stephanus E. & Benedicti, Petrus 1743. ‘Ephraem Syri opera omnia’Volume III, Rome.

Bedjan, Paul 1905. ‘Homiliæ selectæ Mar-Jacobi Sarugensis’ Volume 1,Harrassowitz, Paris & Leipzig

Bedjan, Paul 1906. ‘Homiliæ selectæ Mar-Jacobi Sarugensis’ Volume 2,Harrassowitz, Paris & Leipzig

Brekelmans, Chris & Sæbø, Magne & Haran, Menahem 1996. ‘Hebrew Bible / OldTestament. I: From the Beginnings to the Middle Ages (Until 1300). Part 1:Antiquity’ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen.83 Budge 1894, Volume 1, p. 345.9 – 12.

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Brockelmann, Carl 1928. ‘Lexicon Syriacum’ 2nd Edition, Sumptibus M. Niemeyer,Halis, Saxonum.

Budge, Ernest Alfred Wallis 1894. ‘The discourses of Philoxenus, Bishop ofMabbôgh, A.D. 485-519’ 2 volumes, Asher & Co., London.

Burkitt, Francis Crawford 1904. ‘Evangelion daMepharreshe: the Curetonian versionof the four Gospels, with the readings of the Sinai Palimpsest and the early Syriacpatristic evidence’ 2 volumes, Cambridge University Press.

Cureton, William 1858. ‘Remains of a very antient recension of the four gospels inSyriac, hitherto unknown in Europe’ John Murray, London.

Fitzmyer, Joseph Augustine & Harrington, Daniel J. 1994. ‘A manual of Palestinianaramaic texts: second century B.C. - second century A.D.’ Biblica et orientalia; 34,Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, Rome. Originally published 1978.

Gesenius, Friedrich Heinrich Wilhelm 1859. ‘Hebrew and Chaldee lexicon to the OldTestament scriptures’ Translated by Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, Samuel Bagster,London.

Goldschmidt, Lazarus 1897 ‘Der Babylonische Talmud mit einschluss dervollstaendigen Mišnah’ Volume 1, S. Calvary & Co., Berlin.

Gwilliam, George Henry & Pusey, Philip Edward, 1901. ‘Tetraeuangelium sanctum’Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Jastrow, Marcus, 1971. ‘A dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli andYerushalmi, and the Midrashic literature’ 2 volumes, Judaica Press, New York.

Kmosko, Mihály 1926. ‘Liber graduum’ Patrologia Syriaca, part 1, tome 3, Paris.

Land, Jan Pieter Nicolaas, 1862. ‘Anecdota Syriaca’, volume 1 of 4 volumes, quarto.Lugdunum Batavorum, Brill dated 1862 - 1875

Lavenant, René s.j. 1963. ‘La lettre a Patricius de Philoxene de Mabboug’ PatrologiaOrientalis, Tome XXX, Fascicule 5, Paris. Reprinted 2003, Brepols. References aregiven to the Syriac text by page and line numbers.

Leloir, Louis 1958. ‘L’Évangile d’Éphrem d’après les oeuvres éditées’ CorpusScriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, volume 180, subsidia, tome 12. Louvain.Ephrem's quotations from the gospel are referenced by the quotation number.

Lewis, Agnes Smith & Bensly, Robert L. & Harris, J. Rendel & Burkitt, F. Crawford1894. ‘The four gospels in Syriac’ Cambridge University Press, C. J. Clay & Sons,London.

Lewis, Agnes Smith 1894, ‘Catalogue of the Syriac MSS. in the convent of s.Catharine on Mount Sinai’ Studia Sinaitica 1, C.J. Clay and Sons, London.

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Lewis, Agnes Smith 1910. ‘The old Syriac gospels, or Evangelion Da-Mepharreshê’Williams and Norgate, London.

Louw Johannes P. & Nida, Eugene Albert 1988, 1989 ‘Greek-English lexicon of theNew Testament based on semantic domains’ 2nd Edition, 2 volumes. United BibleSocieties, New York.

Marsh, Fred Shipley 1927. ‘The book which is called the Book of the HolyHierotheos, with extracts from the prolegomena and commentary of Theodosios ofAntioch and from the “Book of excerpts” and other works of Gregory bar-Hebræus’Published by Williams and Norgate for the Text and Translation Society, London &Oxford. Reprinted by Gregg International Publishers, Farnborough, Hampshire 1969.References are to the page and line in the English translation and then to the page andline in the original Syriac text.

Mingana, Alphonse 1905. ‘Narsai, doctoris Syri, homiliae et carmina’ 2 volumes.Mosul, Iraq. References are given by volume number then page number, then linenumber.

—. 1933. ‘Catalogue of the Mingana collection of manuscripts’, Volume 1, W. Heffer& Sons Ltd, Cambridge

—. 1936. ‘Catalogue of the Mingana collection of manuscripts’, Volume 2, W. Heffer& Sons Ltd, Cambridge.

—. 1939. ‘Catalogue of the Mingana collection of manuscripts’, Volume 3, W. Heffer& Sons Ltd, Cambridge.

Olinder, Olof Gunnar 1937. ‘Iacobi Sarugensis epistulae quotquot supersunt’, CSCO,Volume 110, Syriac 57, reprinted 1952. ISBN: 90-429-09144-6 References are to thepage and line in this edition.

Parisot, D. Jean 1894. ‘Aphraatis, sapientis Persae, Demonstrationes, I-XXII’Patrologia Syriaca, Part 1, Tome 1. Firmin-Didot, Paris.

Payne Smith, Jessie 1903. ‘Compendious Syriac dictionary founded upon theThesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith’ Clarendon Press, Oxford 1903. Reprintedmultiple times including by Oxford University Press, 1994.

Resch, Gotthold 1905. ‘Das Aposteldecret nach seiner AusserkanonischenTextgestalt’, Leipzig.

Ring, Steven Richard 2008. ‘Identifying early Syriac gospel texts’ Xth SymposiumSyriacum, Granada, Spain, September 22nd to 27th 2008.

Rodkinson, Michael Levi & Wise, Isaac Mayer 1903. ‘New edition of the BabylonianTalmud’ 2nd Edition. Volume 1, Shabbath. New Talmud Publishing Company,Boston.

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Rosenthal, Franz 1963. ‘A grammar of Biblical Aramaic’ Porta linguarumorientalium; Neue Serie V, 2nd revised edition, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden.

Siman, Emmanuel Pataq 1984. ‘Narsai, Cinq homélies sur les parabolesévangéliques’, Cariscript, Paris. This is a facsimile edition from a Ms in Tehran.References are to page and line number in the Syriac text.

Sokoloff, Michael 1990. ‘A dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of theByzantine period’ Dictionaries of Talmud, Midrash, and Targum 2, Bar IlanUniversity Press, Ramat-Gan, Israel.

Staniforth, Maxwell & Louth, Andrew & Radice, Betty 1987. ‘Early Christianwritings’, Penguin, St Ives, United Kingdom.

Stevenson, James & Frend, William Hugh Clifford 1987. ‘A new Eusebius’, SPCK,Cambridge University Press.

Wright, William 1869. ‘The homilies of Aphraates the Persian sage’ Williams &Norgate, London & Edinburgh.

—. 1870. ‘Catalogue of the Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum’ Volume 1,London. Reprinted by Gorgias Press, Piscataway, New Jersey, 2002.

—. 1871. ‘Catalogue of the Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum’ Volume 2,London. Reprinted by Gorgias Press, Piscataway, New Jersey, 2002.

—. 1872. ‘Catalogue of the Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum’ Volume 3,London. Reprinted by Gorgias Press, Piscataway, New Jersey, 2002.

Bibliography – manuscripts

Birmingham, Mingana Ms 546, dated 1929. A mostly unedited collection of works byJacob of Serug; References are to the Ms folio, column and line number. For adescription of this Ms, see the Mingana catalogue, Mingana 1933, volume 1, column1012.

London, British Library Ms Add. 14,451 of the 5th century AD, see codex numbercxvix in Wright's catalogue, (Wright 1870, p. 73, c. 2). This is the Curetonian codexof the Vetus Syra; See the editions, (Cureton 1858, Burkitt 1904, Lewis 1910).

Sinai, Saint Catherine Monastery, Syriac Ms 16. This is a very neatly writtenEstrangela manuscript of the 6th or 7th century. This Ms was catalogued by AgnesSmith Lewis, (Lewis 1894, pp. 18 – 38) and this Ms was also photographed by anexpedition from the US Library of Congress in the 1950's.

Sinai, Saint Catherine Monastery, Syriac Ms 30. The Sinai codex of the Vetus Syra

can be found in the underwriting of this famous palimpsest. This Ms was cataloguedby Agnes Smith Lewis, (Lewis 1894, pp. 42 – 47). For the Syriac text, see theeditions, (Lewis, Bensly, Harris & Burkitt 1894, Burkitt 1904, Lewis 1910). The best

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edition was the second one by Agnes Lewis who discovered this manuscript, (Lewis1910).

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