Appendix A. On Syriac Lectionaries.
A very interesting group of Syriac manuscripts is found in the collections of Syriac MS. Lectionaries which have descended to us. That the number of them is large may be inferred from the fact that thirty-five may be found in the British Museum alone (Catalogue, i. pp. 146-203).
Syriac Lectionaries are of two classes, (i) those according to the Greek Use, and (ii) those according to the native Syriac Use. The former, or Malkite Lectionaries, may be dismissed from the present enquiry. They are only Greek works in a Syriac dress, and their value is historical rather than critical[452].
The true Syriac Lectionaries, whether Jacobite or Nestorian, follow as to their main features the Greek Lectionaries which have been described in our first volume, coming under two main classes, Evangelistaries and Apostolos[453]. But they present one important contrast. In both families of Syriac descent, the Ecclesiastical year begins with Advent, and not, as in Greek Lectionaries, with Easter; and in general the arrangement is similar in both, so that the system must at least be of considerably greater antiquity than the days of the schism. In some of the Jacobite copies the text of the Harkleian revision has been substituted for the ancient Peshitto. Some include Lessons from the Old Testament. Some contain a Menology. In a few instances the Lessons for special festivals form a separate volume.
The majority of the Syriac MS. Lectionaries are comparatively late, but others possess an antiquity which, in the case of some MSS., would be considered remarkable. The British Museum copies, Add. 14,485 and 14,486, are each dated a. gr. 1135 = a.d. 824. Others must be referred to the same century. Add. 14,528, foll. 152-228 (an Index), and the leaf in Add. 17,217, appear to be three centuries older. Another sixth century MS., Add. 14,455 (the Four Gospels), contains many Rubrics, a pr. m. in the text, besides those in the margins by later hands, such as occur in MSS. of all ages. When to these facts we add the consideration already mentioned, that the same system was in use in [pg 414] both branches of the Syrian Church, we see the importance of the testimony of works of this class. They are very ancient ecclesiastical records from the unchangeable East. Like Greek Lectionaries, they are difficult to use, because of their arrangement of Lessons in the succession ordered by the calendar: they are of course public documents, and in consequence possess an importance above that of copies which were in many cases the property of private persons, and may have been carelessly and cheaply prepared. Yet it would not be right to claim for copies of a version a position quite as important as that held by the Greek service-books, since the evidence of versions, as well as of quotations in ancient writers, is only subsidiary. Nevertheless, in the fact that the number of ancient Greek copies of the New Testament is relatively small as compared with the early copies of the Peshitto version, we are warned not to underrate Syriac Lectionaries, though they are of less value for the Syriac, on account of the large number of very ancient and well-written copies which have come down to us, such as those which have been enumerated in our account of the materials for ascertaining the text of the Peshitto.