IN ENGLISH DAILY USED, OF THE SEVENTEEN LETTERS FORMING PART OF THE PESHITO-SYRIAC BOOKS OF THE NEW COVENANT WRITINGS, WHICH HAVE BEEN RECEIVED THROUGHOUT THE EAST, FROM THE A LIKE TRANSLATION OF THE INSPIRED GREEK TEXT IN A CORRESPONDING COLUMN ON EACH PAGE. ITS ALSO AN INTRODUCTION, GIVING A HISTORY OF THE PESHITO-SYRIAC TEXT, TESTIMONIES AS TO ARE BY WILLIAM NORTON, Of North Devon. J London: W. K. BLOOM, 22a, FURNIVAL STREET, HOLBORN. PREFACE. PESHITO IS THE NAME GIVEN both to a Syriac Translation from the Hebrew of the books of the Old Covenant, made in the first century; and also to all but five books, (2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude and Revelation) of the New Covenant, written in the pure Syriac dialect of Edessa, in the time of the apostles. WHEN the name was first given is not known. Bar Hebræus, a Syrian writer of eminence, who died A.D. 1286, applies the word to both the above works. After naming the opinion of some Syrians, that this Syriac translation of the Old Covenant writings was not made earlier than the days of Thaddeus the apostle, and of Abgar, the king of Edessa, he adds as a fact of unquestionable certainty," when also they translated the New Covenant in the same Peshito form." From what was it translated? Wholly from the Greek, a language foreign to the Jews; or partly from what had been written in the Syriac dialect of Palestine, which differed somewhat from that of Edessa? THE MEANING OF THE WORD PESHITO, as applied to these works, seems to have been that they were CORRECT. It is used in Heb. i. 8;-"a CORRECT,—a righteous sceptre, is the sceptre of thy kingdom." It is also used to express FAITHFULNESS, in 2 Cor. i. 12; xi. 3; and Eph. vi. 5. J. D. Michaelis says, "I would translate Peshito, PURE, UNCORRUPTED, ACCURATE, and suppose that the Syrians gave it this title to express their confidence in its FIDELITY.” Bp. Herbert Marsh, another competent judge, has said, “It is probable that the Syrians intended to express by PESHITO, the CORRECT or FAITHFUL version." (Marsh's Translation of the Introduction of J. D. Michaelis to the N.T. 1823, vol. ii. pp. 40, 534. PAUL MAY HAVE HAD ALL HIS LETTERS WRITTEN IN SYRIAC AS WELL AS IN GREEK. It is proved that very few of the Jews knew much of Greek; yet Paul's intense desire for the welfare of his countrymen, must have led him to wish to provide means which would make God's will as fully known to them as to the Gentiles. There were Jews in most, probably in all, the assemblies which he formed. There are words of Peter, addressed to the dispersed Jews, which seem to imply that all Paul's letters were read by them; 4 5 X 46 Peter not only says that Paul had written to these Jews, which may perhaps refer to his letter "to the Hebrews, "but speaks of all his letters," as if known to them; and of those persons who "wrested" them, as if they were persons among the Jews themselves, whose conduct others were cautioned not to follow. (2 Pet. iii. 15-17.) THE TREATMENT OF THE PESHITO BY ALL THE SECTS OF THE EAST, SHOWS THEIR FULL BELIEF OF ITS DIVINE AUTHORITY. They treated it as having quite equal authority with the Greek. They owned no dependence on the Greek, and none of them in the earlier centuries held this in superior esteem. J. Wichelhaus, of Halle, in his work on the N. C. Peshito, 1850, says, "Never, so far as I know, has it been found, in the history of the Nestorians, that their learned men took any care to compare the Syriac text of the N. T. with the Greek text, and to conform it to the Greek." "The Peshito was extolled with the greatest praises. It was deemed to be that which was written in the first times BY APOSTOLIC AUTHORITY. It was called, not only ancient, but SACRED and blessed." (p. 153.) He says that to the Greek text they "paid almost no regard." (p. 187.) Professor Dr. WESTCOTT is not very favourable to the Peshito; but even he says, "It is worthy of notice that Gregory Bar Hebræus " assumes THE APOSTOLIC ORIGIN OF THE N.T. PESHITO AS CERTAIN." (On the Canon p. 236.) He says also, "The Syriac Christians of Malabar [India] even now claim for it the right to be considered as an EASTERN ORIGINAL of the N. T......And their tradition is not to a certain extent destitute of all plausibility." (p. 233.) "All the Syrian Christians, whether belonging to the Nestorian, Jacobite, or Roman communion, conspire to hold the Peshito AUTHORITATIVE.' "It became in the East THE FIXED AND UNALTERABLE RULE OF SCRIPTURE." (p. 239.) THE CHARACTER OF THE PESHITO ITSELF IS NOT INCONSISTENT WITH THE SYRIAN BELIEF OF ITS DIVINE ORIGIN. Often, where the Greek is somewhat obscure, it gives a meaning, perfectly consistent with the context, and with the divine teaching elsewhere, which no merely uninspired translator of the Greek would have been likely or able to derive from the Greek itself. Its seeming independence, joined with its general correctness of teaching, impresses the mind with the thought that such correctness cannot have been the work of uninspired minds. When it differs somewhat in expression from the Greek, the meaning is almost always the same. There is no difference between them so great as to make it either impossible or unlikely, that both were written by the dictation of inspired men, who varied their words in the two as they thought best for the different readers of them. J. D. Michaelis, who made the Peshito his special study for many years, says that he had never found anything in it which displayed either "weakness" or ignorance;" ;" and that it had a claim to "profound veneration." (Intro. vol. ii. p. 41.) Dr. Stiles, President of Yale College in America, said that with him it was "of the SAME AUTHORITY as the Greek." (Dr. Murdock's Translation, Appendix ii., p. 500.) The admission of learned men that when difficulties occur in the Greek, A REFERENCE TO THE PESHITO IS ONE OF THE SUREST MEANS OF REMOVING THEM, implies not only its independence of the Greek, but that in many cases it gives the true meaning more clearly than the Greek does. Dr. Jacob Martin, a professor in Wittenberg University, said,-"When any obscurity or difficulty occurs in the Greek, to this [the Peshito] only can we with safety refer. This only, when doubt arises as to the meaning or translation of any passage, can safely and WITHOUT ERROR be consulted. By this only is the Greek text truly illustrated, and rightly understood." (Intro. to Gutbier's Peshito, p. 26.) J. D. Michaelis said that he "could consult no version with so much confidence in cases of difficulty and doubt"; and knew of "none which is so free from error. (Intro. vol. ii. p. 41.) It is difficult to account for this, upon the mere conjecture of some (in opposition to Syrian testimony) that the Peshito is merely a translation from the Greek by an uninspired mind. It is admitted that the Greek is full of Syriac peculiarities, and some maintain that the Greek text shows such a degree of conformity to the Syriac of the Peshito, in things which are at variance with Greek usage, that much of the text of the Peshito must have been written first. (See Dr. Murdock's Ap. ii., p. 500.) The Syriac has certainly the appearance of being, in some places, the more independent of the two. SIX EDITIONS OF THE PESHITO HAVE BEEN COMPARED IN MAKING THIS TRANSLATION. Many of their slight differences have been mentioned at the foot of the page. When a passage in Greek has different readings, and the better Greek manuscripts have a reading which agrees either with the whole, or the more trustworthy of these six editions of the Peshito, that reading has in general been followed in translating the Greek text, and a reference has often been made to it in a note. Such changes rest on a firm foundation. I. The Edition of the N. C. Peshito in WALTON'S POLYGLOT, large folio, 1653-7, vol. v. The first edition of the N. C. Peshito ever printed, was published at the cost of the Emperor of Austria, in 1555. It was hailed with great joy by the learned; nor is there any reason why it should be less esteemed now. Neither in that nor other editions were the Syriac words fully supplied with signs of the vowel sounds placed above or below the consonants, till the Peshito was printed in Le Jay's Paris Polyglot, 1628-45, under the care of Gabriel Sionita. Walton followed chiefly this Paris edition. He printed a Latin translation at the side of the Syriac. 2. The edition printed at Hamburg by Prof. GUTBIER in 1664 12mo, with a Lexicon of the Syriac words in the Peshito, 1667, |