Again in Matt. v. 32 we read (with all authorities), “Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for the cause of fornication,” &c.; so the Peshitto; but the Curetonian substitutes adultery, and thereby sanctions, not the precept delivered by our Lord, but the interpretation almost universally placed upon it. Now either the Curetonian has alone preserved the true text, or the Curetonian is an emended version. The first supposition is unreasonable; the latter is alone suitable to this and to many other passages.
Not less curious is the addition in ver. 41, “Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him two others.” The Curetonian (with D and some Latin copies) make our Lord say, “Go three miles.” If we cannot admit that this is the true text, then it is an emendation; for it is no accidental change.
But there is a distinct group of emendations which vividly illustrates our contention, that the Curetonian form of Syriac text is pervaded by views of Gospel history which belong rather to the Church than to the sacred records. While fully accepting the Catholic dogma of the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin, we must grant that it is in the nature of a pious opinion, which Christian sentiment recognized as true, but which is not explicitly stated in the New Testament. Hence we view with grave suspicion a class of emendations which are obviously [pg 024] framed to confute the heresy of the Helvidians. Such a class is found in St. Matt. i. In ver. 16, Pesh., “Joseph the husband of Mary;” Cur., “Joseph to whom was espoused Mary the Virgin.” Ver. 19, Pesh., “Joseph her husband, being a just man;” Cur., “Joseph, because he was a righteous man.” Ver. 20, Pesh., “Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife;” Cur., “Mary thy espoused.” Ver. 24, Pesh., “Joseph ... took unto him his wife;” Cur., “took Mary.” The Curetonian translator, for dogmatic purposes, makes four distinct and separate omissions, in three of which he stands unsupported—of the word husband in two places, of the word wife in two others. These are emendations of a deliberate and peculiar kind. We cannot account for all these vagaries by remarking that the Curetonian has often the support of the so-called Western family of text[29]. We must face the question whether the MS. of an ancient version, which exhibits such singular phenomena on its first page, is worthy to be set above that version, which is the common heritage of the whole Syriac Church, and which appears to be the basis of the Curetonian itself. To determine the place of a document in our Apparatus Criticus, we must know something of its history. Of the history of the Curetonian version we know nothing. Its internal character inspires grave doubts of its trustworthiness. We note its peculiarities with interest; but we do not yet see our way to yield much deference to its authority. The Peshitto bears witness to that form of text, which was received in very ancient times in the Syriac Church. The Curetonian, like the Palestinian, is interesting as showing what readings were accepted locally, or by individual editors[30].
3. The Harkleian or Philoxenian Syriac.
Of the history of the Harkleian Syriac version, which embraces the whole New Testament except the Apocalypse, we possess more exact information, though some points of difficulty may still remain unsolved. Moses of Aghel in Mesopotamia, who translated into Syriac certain works of the Alexandrian Cyril about a.d. 550, describes a version of the “New Testament and Psalter made in Syriac by Polycarp, Rural-Bishop[31] (rest his soul!), for Xenaias of Mabug,” &c. This Xenaias or Philoxenus, from whom the original translation takes its name, was Monophysite Bishop of Mabug (Hierapolis) in Eastern Syria (488-518), and doubtless wished to provide for his countrymen a more literal translation from the Greek than the Peshitto aims at being. His scheme may perhaps have been injudicious, but it is a poor token of the presence of that quality which “thinketh no evil,” to assert, without the slightest grounds for the suspicion, “More probable it is that his object was of a less commendable character; and that he meant the version in some way to subserve the advancement of his party[32].” Dr. Davidson will have learnt by this time, that one may lie under the imputation of heresy, without being of necessity a bigot or a dunce.
Our next account of the work is even more definite. At the end of the manuscripts of the Gospels from which the printed text is derived, we read a subscription by the first hand, importing that “this book of the four holy Gospels was translated out of the Greek into Syriac with great diligence and labour ... first in the city of Mabug, in the year of Alexander of Macedon 819 (a.d. 508), in the days of the pious Mar Philoxenus, confessor, Bishop of that city. Afterwards it was collated with much diligence by me, the poor Thomas, by the help of two [or three] approved and accurate Greek Manuscripts in Antonia, of the great city of Alexandria, in the holy monastery of the Antonians. It was again written out and collated in the aforesaid place in the year of the same Alexander 927 (a.d. 616), Indiction iv. How much toil I spent upon it and its companions the Lord alone knoweth ... &c.” It is plain that by “its companions” the other parts of the N. T. are meant, for a similar subscription (specifying but one manuscript) is annexed to the Catholic Epistles.
That the labour of Thomas (surnamed from Harkel, his native place, and like Philoxenus, subsequently Monophysite Bishop of Mabug) was confined to the collation of the manuscripts he names, and whose various readings, usually in Greek characters, with occasional exegetical notes, stand in the margin of all copies but one at Florence, is not a probable opinion. It is likely that he added the asterisks and obeli which abound in the version[33] and G. H. Bernstein (De Charklensi N. T. transl. Syriac. Commentatio, Breslau, 1837) believes that he so modified the text itself, that it remains in the state in which Polycarp left it only in one codex now at Rome, which he collated for a few chapters of St. John.
We have been reminded by Tregelles, who was always ready to give every one his due, that our own Pococke in 1630, in the Preface to his edition of the Catholic Epistles not included in the Peshitto, both quotes an extract from Dionysius Barsalibi, Bishop of Amida (Diarbekr), who flourished in the twelfth [pg 027] century, which mentions this version, and even shows some acquaintance with its peculiar character. Although again brought to notice in the comprehensive “Bibliotheca Orientalis” (1719-28) of the elder J. S. Assemani [1687-1768], the Harkleian attracted no attention until 1730, in which year Samuel Palmer sent from Diarbekr to Dr. Gloucester Ridley four Syriac manuscripts, two of which proved to belong to this translation, both containing the Gospels, one of them being the only extant copy of the Acts and all the Epistles. Fortunately Ridley [1702-1774] was a man of some learning and acuteness, or these precious codices might have lain disregarded as other copies of the same version had long done in Italy; so that though he did not choose to incur the risk of publishing them in full, he communicated his discovery to Wetstein, who came to England once more, in 1746, for the purpose of collating them for his edition of the N. T., then soon to appear: he could spare, however, but fourteen days for the task, which was far too short a time, the rather as the Estrangelo character, in which the manuscripts were written, was new to him. In 1761 Ridley produced his very careful and valuable tract, De Syriacarum N. F. Versionum Indole atque Usu Dissertatio, and on his death his manuscripts went to New College, of which society he had been a Fellow. The care of publishing them was then undertaken by the Delegates of the Oxford Press, who selected for their editor Joseph White [1746-1814], then Fellow of Wadham College and Professor of Arabic, afterwards Canon of Christ Church; who, though now, I fear, chiefly remembered for the most foolish action of his life, was an industrious, able, and genuine scholar. Under his care the Gospels appeared in two vols. 4to, 1778[34] with [pg 028] a Latin version and satisfactory Prolegomena; the Acts and Catholic Epp. in 1799, the Pauline in 1803. Meanwhile Storr (Observat. super N. T. vers. Syr., 1772) and Adler (N. T. Version. Syr., 1789) had examined and described seven or eight continental codices of the Gospels in this version, some of which are thought superior to White's[35].
The characteristic feature of the Harkleian is its excessive closeness to the original: it is probably the most servile version of Scripture ever made. Specimens of it will appear on pp. [38-40], by the side of those from other translations, which will abundantly justify this statement. The Peshitto is beyond doubt taken as its basis, and is violently changed in order to force it into rigorous conformity with the very letter of the Greek. In the twenty verses of Matt. xxviii we note seventy-six such alterations: three of them seem to concern various readings (vers. 2-18; and 5 marg.); six are inversions in the order; about five are substitutions of words for others that may have grown obsolete: the rest are of the most frivolous description, the definite state of nouns being placed for the absolute, or vice versa; the Greek article represented by the Syriac pronoun; the inseparable pronominal affixes (that delicate peculiarity of the Aramaean dialects) retrenched or discarded; the most unmeaning changes made in the tenses of verbs, and the lesser particles. Its very defects, however, as being servilely accurate, give it weight as a textual authority: there can be no hesitation about the readings of the copies from which such a book was made. While those employed for the version itself in the sixth century resembled more nearly our modern printed editions, the three or more codices used by Thomas at Alexandria must have been nearly akin to Cod. D (especially in the Acts), and, next to D, support BL, 1, 33, 69. “Taken altogether,” is Dr. Hort's comment, “this is one of the most confused texts preserved: but it may be rendered more intelligible by fresh collations and better editing, even if they should fail to distinguish the work of Thomas of Harkel from that of his predecessor Polycarpus” (Introd., p. 156).
The number of MSS. of this Harkleian version is far greater [pg 029] than it was supposed to have been. The important discovery of the Mohl MS., now in the possession of the Cambridge University Library, brings down the Epistle to the Hebrews to the conclusion, so that we now possess the Pauline Epistles complete in this revision.