“A Revision of the old Syriac Version appears to have taken place in the IVth century, or sooner; and doubtless in some connexion with the Syrian Revision of the Greek Text, the readings being to a very great extent coincident.”—(Text, 552.)
“Till recently, the Peschito has been known only in the form which it finally received by an evidently authoritative Revision,”—a Syriac “Vulgate” answering to the Latin “Vulgate.”—(p. 84.)
“Historical antecedents render it tolerably certain that the locality of such an authoritative Revision”—(which Revision however, be it observed, still rests wholly on unsupported conjecture)—“would be either Edessa or Nisibis.”—(p. 136.)
In the meantime, the abominably corrupt document known as “Cureton's Syriac,” is, by another bold hypothesis, assumed to be the only surviving specimen of the unrevised Version, and is henceforth invariably designated by these authors as “the old Syriac;” and referred to, as “syr. vt.,”—(in imitation of the Latin “vetus”): the venerable Peschito being referred to as the “Vulgate Syriac,”—“syr. vg.”
“When therefore we find large and peculiar coincidences between the revised Syriac Text and the Text of the Antiochian Fathers of the latter part of the IVth century,”—[of which coincidences, (be it remarked in passing,) the obvious explanation is, that the Texts referred to are faithful traditional representations of the inspired autographs;]—“and strong indications that the Revision was deliberate and in some way authoritative in both cases,—it becomes natural to suppose that the two operations had some historical connexion.”—(pp. 136-7.)
XIX. But how does it happen—(let the question be asked without offence)—that a man of good abilities, bred in a University which is supposed to cultivate especially the Science of exact reasoning, should habitually allow himself in such slipshod writing as this? The very fact of a “Revision” of the Syriac has all to be proved; and until it has been demonstrated, cannot of course be reasoned upon as a fact. Instead of demonstration, we find ourselves invited (1)—“To suppose” that such a Revision took place: and (2)—“To suppose” that all our existing Manuscripts represent it. But (as we have said) not a shadow of reason is produced why we should be so complaisant as “to suppose” either the one thing or the other. In the meantime, the accomplished Critic hastens to assure us that there exist “strong indications”—(why are we not shown them?)—that the Revision he speaks of was “deliberate, and in some way authoritative.”
Out of this grows a “natural supposition” that “two [purely imaginary] operations,” “had some historical connexion.” [pg 277] Already therefore has the shadow thickened into a substance. “The Revised Syriac Text” has by this time come to be spoken of as an admitted fact. The process whereby it came into being is even assumed to have been “deliberate and authoritative.” These Editors henceforth style the Peschito the “Syriac Vulgate,”—as confidently as Jerome's Revision of the old Latin is styled the “Latin Vulgate.” They even assure us that “Cureton's Syriac” “renders the comparatively late and ‘revised’ character of the Syriac Vulgate a matter of certainty” (p. 84). The very city in which the latter underwent Revision, can, it seems, be fixed with “tolerable certainty” (p. 136).... Can Dr. Hort be serious?
At the end of a series of conjectures, (the foundation of which is the hypothesis of an Antiochian Recension of the Greek,) the learned writer announces that—“The textual elements of each principle document having being thus ascertained, it now becomes possible to determine the Genealogy of a much larger number of individual readings than before” (Text, p. 552).—We read and marvel.
So then, in brief, the Theory of Drs. Westcott and Hort is this:—that, somewhere between a.d. 250 and a.d. 350,
“(1) The growing diversity and confusion of Greek Texts led to an authoritative Revision at Antioch:—which (2) was then taken as standard for a similar authoritative Revision of the Syriac text:—and (3) was itself at a later time subjected to a second authoritative Revision”—this “final process” having been “apparently completed by [a.d.] 350 or thereabouts.”—(p. 137.)