and nature of sin. So the Old Testament held its place and authority in the Christian Church, in the Church of the Reformation not less than before, down even to the most modern times.

But it holds that place no longer. In the face of the searching investigations of our day the Old Testament has lost its value as an apologetic for Christ and as an authority on Christian Ethics. Of its Messianic Prophecies many have fallen entirely, and the rest have received a new interpretation, an interpretation that has only relative significance. Its history of origins, the origin of the world, of man, of sin, of language, is found to be not history but theory. Such theories do not belong to the science of Old Testament Theology; they belong to Metaphysics, or to the physical and sociological sciences. The Gospel has become independent of the Old Testament, completely independent, says Professor Budde, and the Person of Jesus Christ is the essence of our religion.

What is to be done with the Old Testament now? Cast it aside, says one party; cast it completely and entirely aside. And it is 'a party not to be overlooked.' Nay, 'within the theological faculties themselves, doubts now and then arose as to whether the Old Testament should be permitted to retain its position of equality with other departments of the theological course.' But we know that that is not Professor Budde's mind. Nor has he any fear that such views will prevail. He uses the past tense. He says doubts arose.

As the twentieth century approached there came a revolution 'for which we living Old Testament men had for some decades been energetically preparing.' Lost to it on one side, the Old Testament has been restored to Christianity on another. If it is no longer a quarry of proof texts, it takes its place, with more profit and more permanence, in the development of religion in the world.

In the development of religion in the worldsome would say in the science of the history of

religion. But Professor Budde does not like the name. It is not a matter of the history of religion but of the comparative study of religion. This study aims at a physiology of religion, or rather, for there is life in it, at a biology of religion.

For there is in the world a science of religion. It is a department of its own, and it is an exceptionally large one. It is a science of life, of pulsating life within the realm of human existence. All its phenomena enter into the closest mutual relations. Not one of its almost innumerable manifestations can be separated and isolated from the rest. Between the very lowest and the very highest forms of religion there appear mysterious relations which warn us neither to despise nor to neglect even the most insignificant among them. It is one of the student's most frequent yet eversurprising experiences. Does Christianity lose by being taken into this study? It cannot lose but win. 'Indeed,' says Professor Budde, 'the more we extend the range of observation and the deeper we penetrate into details, the more evident will it become that the reality of religion is incontestable and its vitality indestructible. The more numerous the inner relations running through the whole body, the more certainly will everything be traced back to the one central point, to the living God, who had fanned this spark. And we Christians joyfully accept, notwithstanding all our conscious weaknesses, the test of spirit and power to prove the fact that Christianity is, among all religious individual organisms, the highest and the most perfect, the aim and the end of the whole process.'

Now the Old Testament comes to new honour. For, however all religions are correlated and all their phenomena organically connected, Jesus Christ was certainly a Jew of the Jews. However unique and creative His power and religious efficacy, the preliminary conditions are furnished by the Old Testament. Just as the genius has his father and mother as well as the most ordinary earthling, so Jesus always and unhesitatingly re

impartial in his proposed corrections, some of these being in his own transcript, and some in the transcripts of his friends, including myself. He has also adopted many of the corrections which I made in 1895.

Mr. Burkitt is a close observer and a careful reader. He has made excellent use of the four volumes of photographs which I placed in the University Library, and of the still clearer ones which I took in 1902, and which I lent to him for a whole year before they were added to the Library volumes last August. He has also examined the transcript which I made in 1895, from which, to my lasting regret, I was persuaded to edit away several characteristic and perfectly correct phrases, and to replace them by Peshitta words in brackets. I am therefore grateful to Mr. Burkitt for restoring the true reading in Mk 1223. 29, Lk 624 1255, partly in Lk 633, and in Lk 1320.

This book marks a considerable advance in our knowledge of what the text really is. But we are not yet at the final goal. In some verses the author says, 'S. illegible,' yet the text of them has been for three years in my desk. In other verses he has made conjectures, aided by the Peshitta, which differ considerably from my latest transcript. Thus I am in a position to dispute his reading of more than eighty verses. Two sources have been open to me for ascertaining these.

First, the MS. itself. True, I got little new information from it in 1897. I was then just recovering from a long and very enfeebling rheumatic illness; and the purpose of that visit to Sinai was an inspection of the Palestinian Syriac lectionaries. In 1902 I had completely recovered my health, and the five years' interval had been spent, for the most part, in the work of deciphering other palimpsests.

Secondly, I have adopted a suggestion made by my sister, Mrs. Gibson, while we were in New York, in the autumn of last year. Observing that a page of the Sinai palimpsest, thrown on a screen during a lecture given by us at the Jewish Theological Seminary, could be very easily read, she said to me, 'Why do you not turn all your photographs of that MS. into slides, and read them in the light of an electric lantern? You would get a much better control of the text.' That proposal was carried out by us as soon as possible after our return home, and so for seventy days in the spring and autumn of 1904 we spent our evening hours

reading all we could see of the text from beginning to end.

We were disappointed to find that the light would not show up any part of the text that is quite illegible in the manuscript. But for the determination of spaces it is unrivalled. It can tell to a nicety how many letters there are in each word, and whether any word has been dropped out in the transcription. Especially is it valuable in determining the presence or absence of a yod; the writing being so regular that each single letter occupies the same amount of space as its neighbour. In this way we soon ascertained that the unjust steward of Lk 168 was commended by the lord (), and not by the Lord (8). I am glad to observe that Mr. Burkitt has also made this important correction.

The verses in which I firmly believe that I have the better text divide themselves into two classes. i. Cases in which Mr. Burkitt has either said, 'S. illegible,' or in which he has filled up a gap with words copied from the Peshitta, placing these in brackets. My transcript of such verses from the manuscript is, I venture to think, more to be depended on, in so far as it sometimes shows a text which would not naturally have occurred to me, and which is not identical with either the Curetonian or the Peshitta. Such verses are:Mt 826. 29. 33 91. 2. 3. 10 114. 23 1717 2443 2511 263.5. 15, Mk 41 918 1219. 20. 22 1422. 24, Lk 522. 26 633 815 952 103.4 1717 194.5 2353 2439. 41, Jn 129.32 314. 21 41 519. 20. 21. 23.25 612. 19. 22711. 25 822 99 1011. 36. 38. 39 1144 12 29.44 1323.29 1332 1428 153.7.8 1524 1810.

ii. A few cases in which Mr. Burkitt, in the impulse of a natural enthusiasm, has made changes which I feel to be arbitrary. It will perhaps be difficult, in the face of his deservedly high reputation for accuracy, to convince scholars that this can be. But I will try.

Take first the second line of the final colophon to the upper writing on f. 181a.1 I edited this in Studia Sinaitica, No. ix., and I kept back the book for a few days from publication, in order to allow of Mr. Burkitt's printing in an appendix the text of a shorter colophon on f. 165b which I had stupidly overlooked, and from which he supplied the word

to my transcript, it being quite illegible in the two dim photographs of a faded page which I had with difficulty read. So far well. But he went further, and insisted on changing my or 2713

1 Studia Sinaitica, No. ix. pp. xxiv and 5.

into 1. Being at Sinai in 1902, Mrs. Gibson and I both verified it as a word of four letters. Of these and are as legible as anything else in the upper writing of the manuscript. The third letter has been partly rubbed out, and is either a kaf or a resh with two dots over it. I have stated this in Studia Sinaitica, No. xi. pp. v, vi. Mr. Burkitt repeats his erroneous emendation on page 19, vol. ii., of the present work. Syriac scholars can perhaps judge for themselves by looking at the penultimate page of my photographs in the University Library. It is numbered f. 181a or 361. The reverse of that leaf contains only five lines of the upper writing at the top of the page, being the latter half of the final colophon. The palimpsest text, which occupies the rest of that page, is in sloping Greek uncials. None of None of them could by any means fall into the shape of a and show through the vellum. Just after the we find what Dr. Rendel Harris calls a 'lapidary stop' (:); and there is a similar stop separating each word of that colophon from its neighbour.

Mt 520. Mr. Burkitt has done well in restoring the word [n]mpt to this difficult verse. But when he tries to squeeze the word ', 'of heaven,' into a line which distinctly ends with

, kingdom,' in the MS., he does something for which I can see no justification (vol. i. p. 542). Mrs. Gibson and I examined the place, at Mr. Burkitt's request, during our last visit to the Monastery, and we could find no trace of that word either above or below the line. After all, what is wrong with the reading? May our Lord not have spoken, at least once, of 'the kingdom,' which is surely not confined to any place with a conventional name?

,[א]הו [ד]תכיל הוא על אלהא

In Mt 2743 Mr. Burkitt suggests (Appendix, vol. i. p. 544) that the true reading of this verse may be by non[7] [8], thus assimilating it to the text of D a b d. There is no need for such cumbersome phraseology. The true reading will be found by substituting &, ecce, for in at the beginning of the sentence.

is not the reading of Mk 417. It is na, as I have ascertained from the manuscript. 'And they have no root in them.'

I agree with Mr. Burkitt that the words NM 87 in Lk 212 must be wrong (vol. i. p. 548). In a duplicate copy of my transcript, made each evening in my tent while at Sinai in 1895, I find that the line runs m 8, ‘Behold, and thus there

is a sign unto you.' I do not know that this is more satisfactory.

I am certain that I have examined the word ns in v. on three different occasions-in 1895, 1897, and 1902-with a strong desire to abolish the waw, but it was too distinct to permit of my doing so. Whether the sign of the plural be on the word N, 'angels,' or whether it be the conventional angel,' we cannot easily discover, owing to the impenetrable veil cast over it by John the Stylite: but we may find a way out of the difficulty by supposing that some other words

.קאם preceded דמריא than

We now come to the shepherds. I have happily no longer any doubt as to what word they are reported to have used for 'let us go.' I have spent hours over the page trying to decipher the two or three letters which follow no (v.15) Three years ago they yielded up their secret. I therefore protest strongly against the very distinct tau being deleted. The word is byn, the first person plural, imperfect Ethpaal of the verb y.

I am glad to observe, however, that some emendations which I have made by the light of the lantern, or in the more glowing effulgence of the desert sunshine, have occurred to Mr. Burkitt either as conjectures or as realities.

21

15. 25

Examples of these will be found in Mt 222 418 927 1234 135 2213 2634, Mk 45.9 820. I 13bis 23 1315. 1422. 54, Lk 244.52 518 847 1150 1254 137.25 144. 28 2441, Jn 129 323 434 710. 26 821. 44 913 1012 1217 1330.38 1422 1811. 15. These do not include the emendations which Mr. Burkitt has adopted from my paper in the Expositor for August 1897.

Others which I have verified and found correct with the help of Mr. Burkitt's book are in Mt 1522 179 2213. 17. 18. 31 2624, Mk 731 1021. 35 1232 1328, Lk 518 (partly) 86.44 933.44 1034 118 163.8 176 1917 2028 2426. 81, Jn 314. 18 615 23. 29. 32. 38. 35 1217. 48 (2) 1722. But I dissent from the alterations in Mt 169, 1410 1628 197, Jn 130.36 750 1248 (1) 1322 1726.

Lk

The word N, in Lk 714, occurs in Codex B of the Palestinian-Syriac Lectionary. Mr. Burkitt will find that I have anticipated his adoption of it for the Sinai text on p. xxiv of our edition.

The phrase 'as now bound,' beneath the two illustrations of the Sinai palimpsest given in vol. ii., must surely be meant in irony. For the last eleven years two inches of binding on one side only have remained attached to the manuscript.

A slight mistake in vol. ii. p. 18 may be noted. Mr. Burkitt credits me with more generosity than I deserve; for the four volumes of my photographs which are now in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, are there by right of purchase.

on

We owe Mr. Burkitt special thanks for the well-nigh exhaustive collection of corroborative quotations from the Syriac Fathers, which he has presented to us in vol. ii. The treatise on 'Grammar and Syntax' (chap. ii.); that 'Notable Greek Transliterations,' and the 'Notes on Select Passages,' are admirable. But in assigning to the version, as represented by this Sinai palimpsest, a date posterior to the Diatessaron; in actually fixing that date as about 200 A.D.; and in dealing with Dr. Hjeldt's theory, I cannot say that he is so happy. If Mr. Burkitt be right, the Evangelion Da-Mepharreshe was never used by any Church or nation. It came into existence during the period when the Diatessaron reigned supreme; and the only use it has served is that it has been a base for the revision of itself into the Peshitta. Two of Dr. Hjeldt's strongest arguments are not even mentioned in this volume; much less confuted.

i. The occurrence of two notable mistakes in the Sinai text-mistakes made by a translator who was better acquainted with Syriac than with Greek, and which are non-existent in the Diatessaron. These are nya, 'invitation' for rǹv πapákλŋoiv vuv, 'your consolation,' in Lk 624; and of κaтακρεμάσαι for κατακρημνίσαι, in Lk 420.

ii. The omission of one of our Lord's most beautiful and characteristic sayings from the Cross -'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' If the Old Syriac text had come into existence later than the Diatessaron, so Dr. Hjeldt argues, the translator could never have omitted a phrase which must have become endeared to all Aramaic-speaking Christians.

But the weakest point in Mr. Burkitt's argument is that on p. 212. The earliest Church in Edessa,' he says, 'under Addai and Aggai had no New Testament. For the first generation of Syriacspeaking Christians the Law and the Prophets sufficed.' Mr. Burkitt would have us believe that not only in Edessa, but also at Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians, and whither the gospel-story was brought by un-named humble men (see Ac 1119), a Church which was the mother of missionary enterprise, was content

to wait a whole century before it read the four records of our Lord's life in its own tongue. Mr. Burkitt may believe this; I cannot. If there was

a Syriac translation of the Gospels before Tatian's time, it is difficult to believe that this was any other than the Sinai version. The success of the Diatessaron may be explained on other grounds. If we accept Dr. Hjeldt's view that the four Gospels were carried separately in their Syriac dresses to Edessa, each being the work of separate translator, we may assume that many of the chief families and the chief congregations would only be able to purchase one of them. These would hail with acclamation the idea of having all four Gospels together in a compendious portable treatise.

As for Antioch, we know that in Chrysostom's time there was a difference in language, but a complete unity of faith, between its educated townsmen and the agricultural population around it. But can we believe that St. Peter never preached to the latter in his native Aramaic ? Everywhere else Christianity spread from beneath upwards; and the excellent character which these country folk bore in the fourth century was surely the outcome of several generations of gospel teaching.

I cannot therefore accept Mr. Burkitt's identification of Bishop Palût (about 200 A.D.) as the translator of this version. It is easy to believe that Rabbula, in the beginning of the fifth century, superintended that revision of the Old Syriac which was called the Peshitta. For when he ordered the Diatessaron to be replaced in every Church by a copy of the separate Gospels, what more natural than for the people to say: 'Where shall we find a correct one? The Greek differs from the Syriac in so many little points.' But the connexion of Palût with the Old Syriac rests upon no evidence whatever. To make this kind of supposition is possibly to lead us as far astray as to fill up the lacuna in Mt 829 from the text of the Peshitta. Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona multi; and to attribute every service rendered to the early Christian Church to some highly placed ecclesiastic is to imitate the mistake of the historian who first attributed the origin of the English Reformation to Henry VIII.

It would have been an advantage to this book if the contents of vol i. could have been so arranged that the superior text should not have been sub