Such are the chief facts: what is the evident corollary? Surely, that these two Codexes, which were written at the very time when the Diatessaron of Tatian was cast out of the Syrian Churches, were written purposely, and possibly amongst many other MSS. made at the same time, to supply the place of it—copies of the Mĕpharrĕshe, i.e. Distinct or Separate[169] Gospels, to replace the Mĕhallĕte or Gospel of the Mixed. When the sockets are found to have been prepared and marked, and the pillars lie fitted and labelled, what else can we do than slip the pillars into their own sockets? They were not very successful [pg 134] attempts, as might have been expected, since the Peshitto, or in some places amongst the Jacobites the Philoxenian or Harkleian, entirely supplanted them in future use, and they lay hidden for centuries till sedulous inquiry unearthed them, and the ingenuity of critics invested them with an importance not their own[170].
What was the origin of the mass of floating readings, of which some were transferred into the text of these two Codexes, will be considered in the next section. Students should be cautioned against inferring that the Diatessaron was read in service throughout Syria. There is no evidence to warrant such a conclusion. The mention of Edessa and Cyrrhus point to the country near the upper Euphrates; and the expression of Theodoret, relating to the Diatessaron being used “in churches of our parts,” seems to hint at a circumscribed region. Plenty of room was left for a predominant use of the Peshitto, so far as we know: and no reason on that score can be adduced to counterbalance the force of the arguments given in this section in favour of the existence from the beginning of that great Version.
Yet some critics endeavour to represent that the Peshitto was brought first into prominence upon the supersession of the Diatessaron, though it is never found under the special title of Mĕpharrĕsha. What is this but to disregard the handposts of history in favour of a pet theory?
Chapter VII. The Antiquity Of The Traditional Text. III. Witness of the Western or Syrio-Low-Latin Text.
There are problems in what is usually termed the Western Text of the New Testament, which have not yet, as I believe, received satisfactory treatment. Critics, including even Dr. Scrivener[171], have too readily accepted Wiseman's conclusion[172], that the numerous Latin Texts all come from one stem, in fact that there was originally only one Old-Latin Version, not several.
That this is at first sight the conclusion pressed upon the mind of the inquirer, I readily admit. The words and phrases, the general cast and flow of the sentences, are so similar in these texts, that it seems at the outset extremely difficult to resist the inference that all of them began from the same translation, and that the differences between them arose from the continued effect of various and peculiar circumstances upon them and from a long course of copying. But examination will reveal on better acquaintance certain obstinate features which will not allow us to be guided by first appearances. And before investigating these, we may note that there are some considerations of a general character which take the edge off this phenomenon.
Supposing that Old-Latin Texts had a multiform origin, they must have gravitated towards more uniformity of expression: intercourse between Christians who used different translations of a single original must, in unimportant points at least, have led them to greater agreement. Besides this, the identity of the venerated original in all the cases, except where different readings had crept into the Greek, must have produced a constant likeness to one another, in all translations made into the same language and meant to be faithful. If on the other hand there were numerous Versions, it is clear that in those which have descended to us there must have been a survival of the fittest.
But it is now necessary to look closely into the evidence, for the answers to all problems must depend upon that, and upon nothing but that.