ܝܘܣܦ ܝܢ ܟܙܠܗ ܒܐܢܐ ܗܘܐ ܝܘܣܦ ܕ ܫܢ ܒܠܠܗ ܒܐܢܐ ܗܘܐ ܘܠ ܀
The reader must not be misled by this specimen to infer that the Karkaphensian always coincides with the Peshitto. It is not a continuous text, but only those verses or passages are quoted where some word or words occur concerning which some annotation is required in reference to orthography or pronunciation. Whole verses or parts of verses are often omitted[48].
Very recently, since the last illness of Dr. Scrivener had commenced, [pg 036] the results of a wider examination of Syriac MSS. in different Libraries have been made more generally known by Mr. Gwilliam's Essay in the third volume of “Studia Biblica[49].” According to the investigations of the leading Syriac scholars, it appears that the Karkaphensian is not a distinct version, but a kind of Massorah—the attempt to preserve the best traditions of the orthography and pronunciation of the more important or difficult words of the Syriac Vernacular Bible. This Massoretic teaching differs from the Hebrew Massorah, in that whilst the latter supplies us with all that we know of the form of the Jewish Scriptures[50], the Syriac Massorah is younger than our oldest copies of the Syriac Bible. The following are Syriac Massoretic MSS.:—
1. Cod. Add. B. M. 12,138, a Nestorian work, written a.d. 899 at Harran.
2. Cod. Vaticanus 152, a.d. 980 (Wiseman, as above).
3. Cod. Add. B. M. 12,178, a Jacobite work of the ninth or tenth century.
4. Cod. Barberinus, described by Bianchini in “Evangeliarium Quadruplex,” 1748, and afterwards by Wiseman, a.d. 1089 or 1093.
5. Cod. Add. B. M. 7183, also a Jacobite Massoretic work of the early part of the twelfth century.
6. In the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, a Massoretic MS.
7. M. l'Abbé Martin mentions another, a.d. 1015, in the Cathedral of Mosul.