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 The Bible in the Syriac Tradition

Introductory notc : This Course IS ar ra nge d in eigh t sections

\ co ver ing the following topic::
Page

Section I I ) How d ocs th e Bible reach us? 5

- 4 OCT 1993 2) Biblical translation- some general problems 8
3) A hird' s eye view of the Syriac Bible 13

Section II The Syriac Bible - a closer loo k: 17

I) Old Testament
1. from Hebrew : Pcshitta
2. from Greek: Syro-Hexap la

2) Ne w Testament (Fro m Greek) 25

" 1. Diatessaron( H ar mo ny of the Gos pels)
2. Old Syri ac ., .
3. Pcs hiua
4. Philoxcn ian
-- , 5'- I-Iarclcan
Section III How docs the Syriac Bible reach us? 33
1. Bihlical man uscripts
2. Lcc'ti o nar ics
3. Printed editiotl s
4. Translations base d on th e Syriac Bible
Section IV Biblical interpretation in the Syriac Trauition 54
Sect ion V Biblica l co mm entaries 62
Section VJ The usc of the Syriac Bib le in preaching 68
Section VII The usc of the Syri ac Bible in the li turgy 77
Section VIII The Pcshilla as a bas is fur Syriac spirituality B~

Q,ucslions 94

1
 /

':

Dear SCC Par ticipant,

v
Slom!
Welcome to .participate in . the SEERI. Correspondence
Course (SCC) which now offers a series of courses in Syriac Christ·
ian heri tage and in the Syr iac la nguage . The' Syriac Christian tra-

I 'clition is an im portant stream of Christian traqition 'distiflct . from

the Western (Latin) and thc' E,\stcrn Byzantine: tr'aditions~ Among

I! I
the Oriental Christian Churches those within the ISvriac
,. • • .." ,,.. • " \· ··..
cal tradition, may be said to hold pride of place, since ' they arc
liturgi-
• I
•

II ,,'; .! I
represe ntative of, a nd 'to some degree, direc t hcir~ to the Semitic
i ; .... : world out Qf which ,Qhristianity sprang. The Semitic world was
t,
the cradle ,of;Chri~liani~y", The, peoplc~fI1ppg y.: hom·it was" born
• . ' ',. I I 1 : '

" and fir st spread and developed set the m a rk of their own gen ius
o n its first forms of expressioll and natura ll y enough they have
.: ·co ntinucd to bc· the most fit to · think and · ,J ive it in acc·ordance
with what it was from the beginning. T he 'West has lost 'a t least
., ., something of the more humanly and re lig iously a mple c ha racter
.of early, Chfis\iar:t l ~cvei~tio~ .a~d ar expression o r its own original ,
fl avour whic h h ave beel1 )bp.tter conservcd in the Scmitic Christian
!: E as t. 'fhe Bible itself is
built on the Semitic tradition. There-
fore an understanding of the Bible in the Syriac tradition is con
4

'. 1 i :;! ductive to 'a b etter understanding of ~he original Christian re-
velat ion and C hristian life. So we begin our Correspondence
Cou rse with a course on ' Thc Bible in th e S yria c Tradition' . We
believe that wc cannot ge t a morc suitable person to guide this
., coursc th an the Oxford Pro fessor o f Semitic studies Dr. Sebastian
1'. Brock.

Auolll the AUlhor:

Sebasti an P. Hrock was bor n in Lond on, U. K. in 1938.
., ,. After his ed ucation in Cambridge and Oxford, he taught in the
D epartment of Theology at the University of Birming am and
I " : . I I ! I ' ,'j ,J
, . later in the Faculty of Or,i cntal Studies at the University or Cam-
I,, !.,
.. , ", i

I~ '-'· ." LI •t .JiJo'j " ~.

,. ·'· '·"l
 bridge. Since 1974 he is professor at the Orieintal Institute of
the University of Oxfol"d, He has written extcnsively in learned SECTION I '
j ourna ls on Syriac subjects and has published several articles and
1 i books. Among his works are: t.

,I. 'Ho'w doe's the Bible "reach us?

I - The Harp or the Spirit: Poems or St. Ephrem (1975, 1983).
\ - The Syriac Vcr"sion of the Pscudo-Nonnos !'vlythol,ogical Scho-
\ ,:.' '.
,I" ~''fnbdcrn
When we reau thc Rihle toda y wc norm :\ lly read it ill a
priritc"d ed iti on and in a modern translation, whether it
lia (Cambridge, 1976) i" l:hc ' in 'English , or ;\·Ldayalam, or some o the r ~ang-uage. It!s worth
'~l'cflccting how lhcse printed ·e ditions and translations camc into
- The Holy Spirit in the Syrian Baptismal Tradition .being: what lies be hind them, and how do they influence our
(Syrian Churches Series 9) (Poona 1979). "und e rstanding of what the tBible' cont·a ins an'd says?

,The Lumin,o us E ye (Rome 1985).,
- The Syrian Fathcrs on Prayer a nd the SpIritual Life (Cistersian
Studies Series 101) Michigan 1987.
- 'T hc Teac hing of the Syrian Fathers on Prayer (Syriac Text)
(Bar Hebraeus Verlag, Holland 19,8 7).
We hope that the SCC will lead you to the thrill or a great tra-
dition of lear ning and spirituality.
"
Rev. Dr. GEEVARGHESE PANICKER
Director or SCC
:~
Printed -Bibles only go bacK to the sixteenth century. Pre-
YlOUS to that ,Bibles had to be copied by hand, a laborious and
.s low proccss. TIle invention of printing ha,d two impor tant con-
sequences for the Bib'le: in the first place, printing has made it
.p ossible for BiLles Lo be circulated mu ch more widely a nd much
.more cheaply; an d seco ndly, printing has - h elped to standardize
.the arrang·cmcllt and con·tents of the Bible. \Ve shall be looking
.at, Some of the, consequences of this revolutionary invention belo~ .
The manuscript Bible was rarely a complcte Bible, for nor-
,rnally a biblical manuscript would only contain part of the Bible,
'such as the Gospels, or may be thc whcle New Testament. Each
, • 'book would bc de vidcd into chapters, but severa] ·different sy-
. .stems of c hap ter divisions werc current; thus, "for example, the
I, chapter division in Syriac and in Greek m a nuscripts differs from
rthat in OUI' printed Bibies. The chapter divisiun familiar to .us
today in printed Bibles in fact belongs to the Latin translation
-by Jerome, known 'as tHe Vulgate; though 'the sys tem was only
:devised in the ~-1iddle Ages, "it was adopted in · the printed text
-of the Bible in all languages in the sixteenth centur y, and so
this particular s·ystem ·has now become universal. Manusc ript
"Bibles in languages 'other than Hebrew also lacked any form of
,.' ""lv erse div ision : our present verse divisions in the Old Testament
'derive fro m the H e brew Bible, and these were introduced into
, !printed Bibles in all languages in the r.oursc of the six teenth cen-
tury. In the New Testament the ·verse divisions and numberings
were first illl roduce d in some of the first printed editions of the
Gree k text.
i
I
!'
1

6 The Bibl e in the Syriae Traditio n
t>.1anusc ript Bibles in all lang uages exce pt Hebrew were in
book, 0 1- ' codex', form. For purposes of st ud y the Jews would
a lso write out the H ebrew Bible in codex form, but for litu rgic,d
Uji C in S)'n agoguc they always wrote out the text on scrolls .(~
Jl"""'lcticc which still exists). The scroll is in fac t a muc~ older in4
vcntion than the codex. The codex only came to be Widely used
for literal'\" texts in the early ce nturies of th e Christian era, I and
it seems tltat Christians httipcd popularize the new format by first
employing it~for writing Ollt biblical texts in Greek. The codex
has m any adva ntages oyer the scro ll : in particular, the codc~
is much casier to usc, and it can hold vcry much m ore tC:<,t than
a scroll.
J3cforc the invention of the codex pcoplc h ad . in~ariabJy
used the scrolt; thus, for example . the biblical manusr.;ripts in
Hebrew fo und at Qumran, on the DcaCl Sea, arc a ll in scroll form
(they d a tc from about the second century BC ~o the ~irs t c~nt~r y
A D). 'I'his m ea ns that the origina l a uthors of the variOUS blbhcal
books wi ll havc first writtcn thei r h')oks d own on sc rolls, rather
than in book form, jn cod ices. T his a lmost certainl y applies to the
i aut hors of the New Testa ment books as we ll ~s to t hose of the Old
I Testament.
Thc Liblical manu sc r i rt ~ fro m Qumran, which come fro m ...
, .. ' ,I:::
a co llect ion of texts often known as the " D cad Sea Scrolls", are
the · o ldest · surviving bibli ca l manuscripts · in H ebrcw. !vI.ost, of
them arc · very fragmentar y, and th e 'earliest r:ompletc blbhed l
manuscripts in . H eb rcw date fr om very · much later, from the
) . . ',
tent h ce ntury .
\"" The- uooks of the Hebrew !lible (the .Christia n O ld ~resta·
menr) were translated by Je ws ilt to· Grcek in· t he third 'and ,sccond
centuries B C. T his collection o f translatio ns came to be known
'as the . Septuagint (Seven ty) since an earl y tradition claimcd. th at
th e · Pentateuch had bee n trans lated into ·Greek a t Alcxandna .b)'
seventy tra nslators frOln Palestine . The G ;'cek-spt::aking par t of
the ca~ l v C hur ch took on: r t his transla tion from [he Jews, :and
,
in due course th e Jews thems\: Iv cS auan
'- d onc d',1 ... ' \ few sma ll
.fra jp uent s o f th e Septuagint f rom t I\c sceon d al. f lrst ccnturies
ld
.n U su rvi,'c , b ut the earl iest com p Ietc manus e I' Ipt S :irc Christian
olles of the four th ,and fifth centur il.: s ~nd later.
I .j.1 " ." ..
How does the Bible reach us 7
{ . Jews also translated th c Hebrew Bible into ! Aramaic·, and
th ese tra nslatio ns arc kn own today a s the Targ ums. Frag ments
. of-a pre-Christian Targum to J ob have been found at Q umran,
but the other Targ ums w hi ch survive probably originatcQ in th e
31 early centuries of t he Christian era, a nd the manuscripts contain-
• ing !them are "almost all late medieval (twclfth to ·' sixteent h cen-
.~ l-ur.y) . Jews may a lso have translated some ·. book·s ' of the Bible
" , into an Aramaic di ,tlc c.t !resembling Syriac (Syriac originated :as
, ~Ih c loca l Aramaic dialec t of Edcssa), land these were then ·taken'
Qvel' by the : early Syriac-spcaking ·_Cllristian - :" comm unity -to
: form t he beginnings ·of thc ·Peshitta Old 'Tcstamen,t . The earliest
complete manuscript of the Syriac· Old Testament belongs to the
:·' ~ ixth or scventh century. -.
' . H1 ' lvlod~rn 't ra nslations of the Bible ar~ ~ade from particular
~ dition s of th e Hebrew ,Old Testa~ent a nd ·, Greek New Tcsta-
i,:ent. Su rviving manuscripts of th~ H cbrc·w Bible' ·I;ave a re-
. mark~bly u niform text, and so t here is very little 'differe!1ce bet-
' ,veen one edition ·ofthc Hebrew Bible a nd ano t her; ·it is likely I th e
{ha t precise form of the Hebrew h ex t as we know it g<?cs back to
An aut horitative ed ition p rodu ced abou t the end ,.of th~ fir~ t .~en:
tury A D. Defore t hat date th ere was evidcntly·' a certain amount
..?Ft..varia tion .betwcen diff<; rent manuscri p~s. , : ~ "I ~ . . .' ' .
, I n contrast to the Hebrew Bible, manuscripts of ~ he Greek
Tes' - ment (Septuagi nt) and t he Greek New.!Testament' may
;fro.u' one ano th erl considerably in details lo f lwording;'" a nd 'i
modern e ditors havc ' used the earliest ava ila ble :manusc ripts ·
to providc' their readers with a .text ,as close as l possible , .
. the text w ritten down by the original a uth ors. ·;This is·by (10
means a simple task, a nd as a result diffcrent editions of the
qreck New Testament will o ften have slig htly diffcFent texts.
. In most cases t hese modern editions will differ in many s ma ll !Vays
J"r"om sixteenth-ce ntu ry editions, whose editors I Jnos tly relied on
I
;'·a'thcl· late manuscri pts. These differcnces arc t:eflected in _ lh~
various English translati ons: one can easily discover this by· com:
" p~ring a passage in the King James version, ~adc in the sevcn:
.teenth ccntUl·y, with any twentieth centu ry English translation:
n~' t 1 ~ • ~ , " • I •
:-:' , ' As we shall . see~ manu scrip ts of the standard Syriac Bible
;tre re m ark ably un i ~orm in cha ractci·; in this respect they a re.com-
I par,able to H cbrew . biblical manuscripts,. and unJike Greek ones. ,
 8 The Bi b le in the Syri.c Tradi t io n
2. Biblical translation, some general problems
Fas hio ns in biblical transaltion chang e Q\"cr the course o f
time. Twentieth-ce ntury biblical translators approach their task
very differentl y from t.h e way in whi ch th e anci ent translatol'3 '
went ahout th eir wo rk. The aims and th e sc lf:'undcrstanding of
an cient and o f mo dern biblical transla tors were radicallr dirrc r~
cnt. One can genera lize a nd say th at the a ncient translator was
o riente d tow;rrcl s th e orig ina l tex t, while th e mo dern tra ns lator is
oriented tow a rd s th e read er. As a result of this differ ent O riCllt~
a l io n the anc ie n t transla tor transla tes with g rea t deference to-
wards t,he original text, striving to render it (word for word ' ,
eve n if this may so me times r es ult in fIlOnSCIl!iC translations'; in
co ntras t, the m od e rn transla tol' see ks to r end er the te x t intelli-
g ible to his reader and a s a conseq uence he 'translates 'sense ror
~c lls e' , rather thap 'word for word '; and he will avoid at a ll costs
allY no nsell se translations. Ancient tl'anslati9 ns will thus tend to
he mo rc litcral, and m od e rn o nes m ore rree and interpreta tive.
\Vithin eac h t\'pe o r trallslati on. th e more literal and the more
fr ee, th er e is in 'fa ct th e poss i!.,ili ty o i' ~ reat va riet >·, as we !-l hall see
I:Her 0 11 , in con nec ti o n with th e Syri ae Bible,
Vi rtuall y all earl r hiiJliea l t ra nsla ti olls, intu "rhat c\'e r 1. '-11-
gl1ag c , arl: basically tex t- ori ented . ra thcr than re a der- o ri ented .
""hen d id biblical tra nsla ti o n cha nge its p rac ticc a nd become
rcader- ori ented ? Rig ht up to th e cnd of the Europea n Middle Ages
wo rd ro r word trans lation remained th e norm for biblical transla-
tio n, and it was onl y in th e sixtee nth cc ntur y that p ra cti ce chang -
ed. The re are good reasons fo r linkil!:.{ this important !;hift with
th e im'cntio n o f p r inting,
Uclore the invention 0(' printing' tlte m ain context in which
the Bihle was read was durioKchu l"c h sCI' vices, but aft er t he in ven~
lion of printing it became much CII 0 l"C a vailable to he read br
individuals. at home . Since man y passagt': s in the Bible a re ex-
tremel y obsc ure . this lIew situation g-<l\' C rise to prublems lo r the
Church, a ll th c mo re so sinc(' it coi nc ide d in tim e with tilt· move"-
mcnt rOi' reform in EU l' oJl l:. As long as th e reading o f th c Bibl e
,",,'as large ly confined to th e context of th e liturgy . the Chllrch wa!f
able to exe rctse it s authorilY in ma tters o f sc riptural interpretati on
Since biblical readin gs could be acco mpanied by homilctic c:tpla-
,II
B;bl;ca l Translati o n 9.
l\,!tion. Once how eve r' th e Bible had ,become readil )', a va ilaiJlc .
ou t:;jde th e liturgy the.re was no longer an y m eans of co ntrol
over how th e Dible was to be interpreted, and in the course or
the Refo rmation peri od in Europe all sqrts of ext ra vagant inter-
prct~tion began to circulate. There w ere. t\yo main rC<l!{tio ns to
this abuse oC the Bible at th~ time: th e Roman Gil.t holie Ghu·r ch
tri ed to minimize th t! usc of the Bible ou L~ id e th,e co nt ext of
church se rvices, thus reducing the danger or misguided interpre-
tation of the Bible uy individ.u aI5. T.he Reformation Ch u rches ,
on the o ther hand, dealt with the problem iq CllI,i te a diffe rent
',vay, by a dopting a completely new attit1.,lde towarrls bi,b lical ,
translation its<r lf: from the time of St. .Jero me (late i'ourth century)
to. the e nd o f the European Middle Ag es (fi~te enth centur y) th e
ideal a imed a t b y a ll hiblical tr a nsla tors had hee n (as we have
seen) a ' word ror \Vord' , rather than fs ense fo r se nse', rcnd eriu g;
this meant that, ir the orig inal text was obscure, the translator was
content to pass the obscurity on to the reader, leav ing 'the matter
Qf exposition to the p reacher. At th e Rerorm a tion th e ro lc or
translato r ca~l1e to , be joined , to some ex.tent, to that of th e prea-
cher o r expositor, and so th e entire aim o r th e hiblica l tran slation
c ha nged : 11 0 lo nge r di d th e biulical t ransla tor c.;le fer tu th e u rig in ;d
tex t, ren d c rill ~ it f, vord for word'; instead .. he saw hi s task il $
co nveyin g to. lhc rCfld er his own understa,nding o f what th e uihli cal
text mea nt. Accorclil)g ly, in the process of transla ting th e Bihle
into the v ar~o u s European spoken langua ges n r the time, th e R l:-
fo rmers fe lt th e need to be much ' more interpretative in th eir
work or translation than earlier translators had iJf;en.
Virtua ll y a ll m odern biblical tran s latio n ~ ha\'c inhe ritcd
this ch;u,lgcd attitude to wa r d s the task o r th e IJiiJlica l tra nslator .
al,tI~oug h modcrn tr ans latio ns arc interprelati \'c in vc ry differe nt
~vays rro ~n s jxteenth~ce ntur y European translations.
St. Jerome, who produced the revised Latin translation
known a s the Vulga te, was the first person to fo rmulate th e v iew
that it was appropriate to translate the sacred tex t of the lliill c
(' wo r d ror word '. rathe r than ' se nse for sense' , \Ve can, h owc\,('I'.
see rrom the history or th e ca rl y biblical tra nsla ti ons th a t this
ideal had a lready Been put into practice lon g Ilcfore his tim e.
rri th e. case o f mos t ancient tra nslatio ns of th e Bible we ca n ob- "
serve th e same coursc of evc ntS: th e ea rliest tra ns la liolls int o a
II
 10 The Bi b le in the Syriac Traditi o n
partic ular lang uage a r e rather inconsistent in ch a rac te r, since thf!
trans lators lacked experie nce an d precedent; before long, h owever, I
p eople noti ced th a t th e re we re differences be tween ' the origina l
and th e translation, and so they sta rted to revise th e original tran-
s lation, bring ing it closer into agreement w ith the original. This l
\
process of revisio n mi ght be repea ted, 01' go on D vel: a period of "
\ time. In every case we end up \vith a n ex tremely litera l rencle~i~g\'
i
I nf the ori ginal text: This mo\' c!11c nl ' towards a m orc and " morel
literal style of translat ion can be particularly we ll documented
from the histor y o f bot h th e G re ek and th e Syriac Bible, for in
h oth cases ;we h ave somewhat in consisten t stylcs of translation at
thc earlies t stages, followed by a sc ries of revisions ,a imed to bring
I I
the translatio ns eve r closOf'" into line with t~l e und e rl ying tcxt of
the original. .T he end re sults o f this. process o f revision we re highly
s.op histi catcd mirror t ranslat ions.
But eve n the t ranslator who sets dut to provide su ch a
i mirror rcnd e ring cannot avoid being interpretative in places:
II quite rrequently (a nd especia ll y in t he H e brew Old T esta ment )
, the orig ina l text is ambig uous or obscur e. and so th e transla tor is
,I
, rorce d to make: a c hoice b e tween two or more possibilities. I' At
c rea ti on (Gen, 1:2) is it 'the Spiri t of God' or a ' mighty wind ~
over the pri mordia l d eep? Both' ancien t a nd m odern tra nsla tor s
are divided over this a nd many other suc h ambi guities. . ·Ind eed, ,-
.,1i'
so met imes the ve ry c hoice o r a literal rendering mig ht be co n-
sidered interpre tat i ve: a good example is provided by the first
! word of the angel Gabri el's g reeting to Mary in Luke I :28: in Eng-
lish the familiar rendering of th e Greek Hchairc" is 'hail (Mary)',
The stand a rd Syriac biblical text of the New Testament has . "shlam
lek" 'Greetings to you', the equivalent Syriac form of the Greek
g reetin g (similarly, the New English Bible has, 'Greetin gs') , The
ve ry li teral seve nth- ce ntury Syriac version known as the H a rclean
prefers to g ive instead the etymological equiva le nt to the Greek,
Ilamely the imperative ' rejoice', Sh ould the tl'allsla tor pay morc
atte ntion to th e form ('"rej oice' ) or to t h e content ('gree tings' )?
Ancjent tra nslators like the author of th e Harclean New Testa-
ment th ought th at the fc rm was ~or~ important, while modern
translators conside r that the conten t has the gr eater impor tance.
\'\f e ha ve jCt,;n h ow the in ve ntion of printing altered people's
att ilUdes towards the na ture of biblical translation, Printing h a s ·
Bi b li cal Trans lat ion II
an importa nt effec t o n the contents o f th e Bible; this is
J cl- .~~ca u sc printing m akes possible the w idc criculat ion of a ' sing le
edition or tr a nslat ion, re sult ing in a kind of standard izati on that
was not p ossi ble before th e inve ntion of printing, \"ie h ave a l~
seen one suc h ce nsequence, namely the hllrod u c ti ~·n of a
. ...
-
i _cady
~ ,
\s~a~dfl~djzcd syste m of chapter and verse , numbering. Oth c r
I
't . .~!~,d ~ of sta nd ar,d i zation intro duced by. printing 'can be s~en b y
co~paring the conte nts and order of books in differen t modern
franslations. Bibles produced ro r th e Catholic churc h 'will dirrer
[,
fl'om t h ose produced for th e vario us Reformcd Churches: th e I
lfo~mer wi ll contain th e dc:utero-cano nical boo ks, wh ile t he la tter
normally not; and the o rde r. of certa in old T es tament ' books
be differe nt. Orth odox Bible s w jli ~I gain differ frOl'u both
t..;a th olic an d R efor m ed Bibles. H ere we ca n sec th a t the invention
r6( prinqng has stand a rdiz c:d the differe nces betwt.cn the v~r i o~ s
1
.Qh'u r ch t radit ions, '
W e Heed to (4).nsider one m o re problem w hic h needs to b e
face d by the mod c rn biblica l tran slat io n, since this a lso has a
b eari ng on our att itude towards the S yri ac Biblc : What biblica l
:text shou ld the tra nsla tor t reat as a uth o ritative and translate
'a b m? At first sig ht this see ms an easy qucsti o,n to c.lnswe r: ' th e
'Hebrew tex t for th e O ld Testament an d ;th e G I:eek tex t ' far ' th e,
Testam e nt. As we sh all see, h owever, this is by ~1 0 means
;the onl y answer. Certailll y most m oder n transla ti ons ~ct out to
trans late fr o m the H ebrew and t he Greek, but e,"en here
proble ms arise : the edition of the Heb rew Bib le used is ih fac t a
medie va l J ewish o ne w h e re th e orig inally ·' co nso nan tal · text
'h as b ee n :provid ed \';ith vow els; it is ' tr ue t hat the co nso nanta l
"tex't goes· b ac k m ore o r less in its present ·fo r m to the late fir st
·c'elltllI"Y AD , but in m a ny cases (especia ll y 'in ' p oct ic 'b ooks) this
conso nantal text coul d be read with d irfcrc nt vo we ls., provid-
"ing a somew h a t dilTerent meaning , 1vl odcrn translators n or- I
' m alt y follow th e m edieva l Jewish tr a diti on or understan din g '1-
'the text, but it wou ld a lso u e p ossible to take the conso na nta l
. . text a s \til e star ting poin t, without n ecessaril y follo{v ing the par-
,
[
~
, /i i~ ular
,
intc l'lJrctat ion or read inu
0
th e vowe ls" whi ch the med i ev~ l I;
" tradition provides, It w ould a lso th eoretica ll y h e possible to take
as a starlilllT p oint an ea rli er form df the Heb rew tex t, su ch as I'
tl?at pl'esllPl~uscd by the Septu ag int (which in som e. bouks mu st
,
r

II' '12 The Bible in the 'Syriac Tradition
ha ve differed considerably from the: Hcbl'cw text we know)'.
Again, so meo ne might 1:casonably ex pect a translator to try ' to, go
back to th e exact from of th e HCt)I~e\V t'ext as fi rst wrilien ddwii
by tlie individual authors of the old Testament books. This,
:howcve r , is an im possible task, fo r we h ave n o means of getting
behind tHe variet y o f differen t form s o f t he H e brew text wh ich we
now k llow to 'have bee n circulating in the first few centuri es BC.
.
] n ' re sponse, to this state o f affairs, we need to make u s~
. original Greek; t he so-c:;!Ilcd dcutc ro-ca no ni ca l books or 'Apocry -
of th e di stinction between 'literary authenticity' and sc riptural
au th enticity'. Literary authenticity refers to the exact wordi,n g 'lotf
I. the odginal aut hor (w hich , in' the case of the H'c b;'ew 'Old Testa'-
H!t:nt is unattainable), whereas sc riptura l a uthentiCity refers 't ~ a
il form 'of thc biblical' text w hic h has 'be'cll h eld by the religious com;
l~tlllity as / authoritative, This di stinction has imp01.t't~t con~eque­
II
lIees: litera ry a uthentici ty ca n only apply :to a single for in 'of tex~t,
.,II but sc riptura l authen ticit y can a pply simulta neously to severa'l
'I , different fo rm s of text. Thus, as far as the Hebrew bible is con-
cer ned, it could be said that scriptural authenticity applies, not
i 'only to the medieva l Jewish e ditio n of th e Hebrew, but also to
i
It , its conso nantal basis which goes back to the I ~Hc first century I
a nd to lhe H o: bl'cw tcxt use d by the Jewish transla tors of the Old
Testament into Greek . But sc riptuntl authenticity is b y no means '
co nfined to th e Hebrew Old Testamellt and the Greek New Test-'~
.unent: it applies just as much to the ancien t ' versions, the Grcek
Septuagint and the Syriac Peshitta, 'sincc both these translations
: h ave been regarded as authoritative biblical texts by the commu-
nities using them. ' " , "
Ouce we realize that sc riptural authcntieity is not necessarily
I I confined to the odg inal biblical lang uages, it then becomes cleal"'
that modcrn biblical transla tion's should n ot cxclusively be made
fl'om Hcb re w and Greek: fo r the Greek 'and Russian Orthodox
I : 1 The rarity of complete Bibles before the coming of the printed
C hurc h it wou ld be just a s ,d e sirable' (especially for liturgic~ l usc)
to use translations from the Septuag int ; like wise, in the c,a se.or
II, th e C hurc h es of Syriac liturgical tradition , it will be important,to
make ava ilable translations from the Syriac Peshitta. T}~c sc trll-
~ nsbtions would 'primaril y be for usc in the 1iturgy (as we sha ll '
sec, th e ' Syriac liturgica l tradition is rooted 'in the Syriac Bible);
~ IJu t for ot he r purposes too, lh ey cnu ld be profitably used a long-
side lhe existing translations from Hebrew a nd Gq:ck, thus pro- ,
\' i<li ll!,; a n adJitional source for spirilUal insight.
A Bird's Eye View... 13
Eye View of the. Syriilc Bible
~I. " '. "
'j~'or a ll the Churches ofSyriac tradition the a uth orit a tivc form
,of·
. the Bible is th e Svriac
. translation ' kno\vn' as the Peshitta. ' The
}lcshitta O ld T es tament was t ranslate d dire ctl y fr o m the original
H ebrew text, and th e Peshitta New T es ta m e nt direcll y fi'om the
pha' w ere all trallsla ted fi'om Greek, with the exce ption of Ba r
Sira (Ecclesiasticus), which was translated from H ehrew.
'. '~III ' • I
, .The date of ; he Peshitta Old Testament is uncertain, and in
'/' f
tallY case not a ll books will have been tr a nslated a t once, or by~thc
same perso ns, Some books-may- have ·bcen inherited, by the young
Syriac Church from translations made by J ewish communities ill
.Ithc region of Edessa and Nisibis. It seems likely th at most liO-;'ks'
of ,the Peshitta' Old ,T es tament were translated during the period
,fl'o,m the .late first century A D to the ea rly thirc\ " century:A D. '
The Peshitta New Testament is in fact a revision of an earlier
t~'~,ns l at i on, knmvn as the 'Old Syriae ' . The revision may h a ve
m a d e over a p eri o d of time, but was co mpleted sometime in
~ -
the learly fifth ce ntury. The circulation of this revision provcd
.
~~ trcmel y effective, for the Peshitta rapidly replaced the Old
,
Syriac a nd haq become the authori tat ive Syriac text of the New
1 , ,Testament before the schism between th e Syria~l Orthodo:x. Church
.. al~ d t lie Church of the East, brought about by the christological
~ ••• I " -. • , ,'
Fp ntroversies
J ).'1
9f
the mid fifth century.
l
,,~,
I ,' ' I .~
rOIl. I".A large numuer of manuscripts of the Pc;shitta s~ryi.ve, and
~1 the oldes t of these date from the fifth and sixth I centuries: Since
an entire Bible written out by hand was very bulky and awkward
to manage, most manusc ripts orily co ntain small groups 9f books
at a time a nd complete Bibles arc very rare. ' '-
"book has ha.d an important ,consequence: the,precise contents and
, .order of books in the Syriac Bibl~ has never become entirely fixed
(even in mode rn printed editions 'the order i~ whi ch the biblical
-books are printed may differ considerably, from . one edition to
1anoth,er). As far as contents are concerned, , the most ~important'
I!eatl\r~ , of the Syl'iac Bible is the absence ' from ' the,· original
.'~'I_ll\\<\ translation of the New Testament of some of the ,C~tholic
(2 Peter, 2-3 ]ohn,]ude) and the Revelation of ·S\. ]o.h n.

14 The Bible in the Syriae Traditio n
I:, (Apoca lypse); in most printed cditio ns of th c Syriac New T esta-
ment, however, the Syriac text of these boo ks has been supplied
from later Syriac translations.
Although the Peshiua is the sta ndard biblical text, It is not
the onl y Sydac translat ion o f the Bible.
I,", J'ol' the Old Testament J there is a translation m ade from
A Bird's Eye View . . , 15
-for ce rt a in whether he composed his Gospel harmony in Greek 0 1'
;: in Syriac. In th e ea rl.~' Syriac C hurch, before th e birth of the
~ J)es hitla New Testam ent , the Diatessaron was evidently cOll s id~
cred as a n a uth or itat ive Gospe l tex t, for St. Ephrem wrote a com-
mentaryon it in the f"ourlh ce ntury. Once the Pcs hitla ~ (: w Tcs t-
'~ ~ ~ent ha d come into ex iste nce (cad y i n th e rifth cent ury) the
' ~Diatessaron fell out of I~, l vour, and as a res ult no ~o mplcte"man~­
, of it sur v ive:: .
sCl:ipts

I
th e Gree k Septuag int. This vers ion is known in Syriac a s ' the
Seventy' (IfSha b' in"); hut is called the ' S yro-hcxapla ' by m oclchi
~ c holars; it was m ,tdc hy the S~' rian Orthodox ··scTlo l<\I' Paul or
Tella o,"c,' the yca,·, · 6 14-6 16 in Al cxandr'i a (Egypt), Altho ug h
ii . the translat ion was probably never intcntcd for liturg ica l u sc, its
",t text is never theless sometimes to be found in Syriah. . Orthoda"
1cctionarics. The Syro-hcxa pla sur vives in a number of m~nu.
sc ript:-, but unfortunately we do no t ha ve th e complele ,"ex·," ( parti~
of the Penta teuch and Histod ca l Books arc missing).
I,
1 " manuscripts conta ining th e Old Syriac version' of these books
The Syrian Orthodox scholal' J~cob o f Ede.,a (died 10G)
;i made a revised ' Sy riac transla ti o n of ce rtai n [yooks of the O ld
']" csta mcnt, basing his wo rk ern i.J.)t h t he Greek Scp t uag in.t and the
a
Pcs hiua. Parts o f his work survin:s in. small num1xr of \I"ery old
IT'ltlllusc ripls ..
A few other relics of transia llons of individual Old Testa ...
n lc nt boo ks fi-om- Greek in to Sy riac a lso survi ve;: these' nta y have'
Next in time a fter the Diatessaron c~",'' ' ' \he :' translation
' known as the 'Old-Syriac!,of-which only th e Foul' ~ospcls $urv ivc .
(preserve d in two very early manuscripts). The d ate when this
transla tion \Vas made r emai ns u ncertain : some sc holars suggest
~the late sccond or early thin] fc ntury J while others prefer the
.! ea rly four th century. In any case t he Old Syriac seems to be later i
-th an the Diatc~saroli, a nd in many places it has ' been influenced,'
)
, b y th e Diatcssaron. I t is likel y that th e Old Syriac origin a lly
":' , . '
extended to th e Act s or t he Apostles a nd th e Epistles,' but no
j,
,surv ives . .
_" ' '''e. have already seen that the Peshitta Nc.w Testament is
ion fact not a completely new translation from Greek, but a revi -
,... s ion of the Old Syriac, correcting it against thc Greek text. Over
the' pori od fr om the fifth to th e seventh century Greek la nguage
and culturc became morc and m ore prestigious in th e eyes of
Syri ac biblica l sc ho lars J especiall y in the Syrian . Orthod ox I

bee n commissioned by the S yr'ian O rthodoow theolog ia.n PhiloxenU's>

\
o f Mabbug (died 523) .
'
,
Church ; as <1 result, two .further rev isions of tpe Syriac New Test-
a ment were made, trying to bring it closer into line with the
I,

I
Jo~or the New Te<;tament We kno' . . . of a Jlunlher af other'
Syriac \'ersi01l£, be.s ideS' the rc s;hi tta ~
The oldest S yri ac translatio n· of the Gospels WaS' almos t
certainly in the form o f a harm::my or the' (OUl" GOSpcl9, known a~~
the Diate s.s;lI ~o n , a Gree k w()'l'k mea nYllg Ct hrough four T, that is, a·
sing le Gospe l texl d eriv cd rrom th e lo u r' Gospels. On ly very sma iL
fragments of this sur vive. and much un ccl-ta lnt y sur'r ound s itg.
authorship and orig in _ '111c \ Diatcssaron IS' usua ll y thoug ht to'
havc been. com'posed by Tatian ~ a nat ive or th e Mesoputa min who
:;;tudied In R o me u nder JustIn ~vIart y r in th e m iddle or th e seco nd
century A D. an d tfu:n. rt: t.u~rlled to' h i<$·.llOmda nd. Il is- not knowil
r~
Greek origina l.
W e know that the chorepisc;opus Polycai'p ~omple ted a revi·
sion 'of t he Peshitta New Testa ment in 508. This work had been
I commissioned b y the Syrian Orthodox theologian Philoxe nus, !I
: metropolitan of mabbug, and so is normally called the cPhiloxe-
iri nian' New Testa ment . The Philoxcnian version is unfortuna tely
Jost: it was evidently never circ ula ted widely and no manuscripts
~f it survi ve; i t is possible, however, that the extant sixth-century
.translations of the rvHnor Catholic Epistles and Revela.tion may
belong to this re v ision J in whieh case we do have the Philoxenia n .
for a few books, at least.

J
 16 The Bible in the Syria e Tradit io n

This lost Philoxcnian revision served as the basis foi' yet a SECTION II
furtlier re vision of the Syriac New Testament, co mpleted in 6 1G
! ,in Alexandria by the Syrian Orthod ox scholar Thomas of H arke I. HE SYRIAC BIBLE - A CLOSER LOOK '.
~. ~rhis revision, know n as th e ' Harc1can' J provid es a remarkable .,
•• mirror transla tion, refl ectin g every detail of the Greek original.
\ I', Testament ,' ;
The Harclca n was widely circulated in Syrian Orthodox circles ·
and was orlen used for Guspel lccti ona ries. The H a rclcan New
.. .. .1 ) " j'R.\NSLATED FROM HEBREW: "l'ESHITTA" ,
Testament survives complete, and include::; dIe Minor Catholic . ., ,[""--"

1
"

Epist les and Revelation. ;iit.. ,;' The name . 'Pcshltta' ,I]~cans '5traightforwar.d ::' .,si~P\ '~~ J;
il ,I
In tabular forIT} we have:
' w~~. given to the standard Syr iac version of tbe Bible (b.oth 'Old
a:;td New Testaments) in orde'r to distinguish them ' from the '9,~~
I
I OLD TESTAME NT Hebrew ...... ['e,hitta (c. 2nd cent, AD?) v~'n~h .. century translations, the Syro .. hexapla and the Harclean':
'l~he .tna·me is first enco untered in a ninth .. cc ntury writcr; earli~r
I
'authors had simply refcrred to thc Pl!shiua a s 'the Syriac'. ,
,I Grcek (Septuagint) ..... Syro-hexapla (G IG) , ! , ' , , .. "I
, The orig,ins of,the Pcshitta translation arC; 'vcl'y obscure and
,, ·NEW TESTAMENT Gr?ck ..... Dia tc>saron (2nd cenL AD) ~'~Yl'ja~ ~ al!thors had no clear m cmor y of how an..d when "the wor~
~.a~ , ca,t;ricd out (3; ~cw fm p,lausiblc guesscs wCl!e ' I ncve'rt~el~ss ·'cir...
'I {Gos pel Harmony),
-> Old Syriac (c. 3rd cenL )
A close study of thc tra nslation itself ca n' throw a, little
," from such a stud y we can deduce the ro:llo~~l i ng: ;
....... Pcshilla (C ' 400)
III ....... l'hi loxenian (508) -the Peshitta Old Testament tS not the work of a sing le
.tr~n s ~ a tol',
bl!t must have been carried out by many differ ent
- Ha"klean (G I6) .

!
" , PI' , : ' . 1
transiator.!l, perhaps working ovel' a c on si der ~ ble period of ,time.
, . ' . I'"'' .!, I ,)

'J , - the' translatOl's all worked basicall y fro m ,:H,c " tIcbrcw
-'
and ;this Hehrew text was bas icall Y the same as the conson~
:,
I: ur,o: "'IHi·l , Hcbre\~ , tcxt .ofour printcd Hcbrc~v ', Bibles, Si,i~e, \~e kn'~ w

.•
,'I!U:: ~ .• . , I, 1 ' , " II

..• ;i: thjs, conso nantal tcxt became l,the authoritativc' Hebrew text
., 'J f
,r\fprq.c: ti~c,: in' tI~e lalc fi~st cC~lt~ry 't;.. P;
it i~ !\i.l~~lY' !l~~~.• t~5J'~;~\1~:I~ .f;::
,.
,al~r~" wcrc .~xorkin,g ,after it ha~, ~feI1 11 yviqC;IYI J?ro~Hg~~~~; , ::"1( I '
fI "11; '! :'
,!.
' ~H:1 'II'l l , 'n," f." IIi · ' , I I " ··!t If" I! ,. . ..• ,: ! ,~, t ' ,"," ·t; ,: .1,
1 . "
/
" - in some books the t(ahslators seem to ha ve consulted or
use of other trans lati~ns':' thus at ' ' v~~ious ' P~B~~s. in ~ th ~
M·.
(1 J "
: ,n
~ Pcnlatellc h (Ge nesis Deuteronomy) " there a rc some remarkable ) er
; " : ,,( Jinks between the Peshitta and the Jewish Aramaic ;. 1
T" a rguIms; and ,r~,
• J

some of' the ' Prophets and Wisdom ,~oo.k s: t,h,e l tra1lsl,';ltors . pro ..
J
.1:) ,
1 "1 '
'" ..:~b ~bly ,consulted the Septuag,int on occasion, in order to seck help p,d
,I'ver a difficult :paSsage in the Hebrew. The lin~s with the T a r- II, I'
,
IftiJ-g ll~ Sin certain " books lcads ,us to suppose tha~ at le~s t , for.. tl~es.c ,? ~
 18 The Bible in the Syriac Tradition
Olp Testament 19
books the translator (s ) were probably Jewi sh , rather than Chris.
tian. In olite r hoo ks, h oweve r, the e vidence perhaps points to (ut vi lll susp e nd" ). It is in tercsting to find that most modern
11 Christian translators, thou g h it is Ji kely that suc h people were of .. translators base th eir renderin gs o n the second inte rprctation , thus
J ewish oigin, for a knowled ge o f Hebrew would otherwise be following in th e foo tsteps of the Peshitta.
I,
I'
difficult to explain. , .
!'" .! .,-t-: . _,t n
-J f!)' ' j" ,
the next Vcrse (4 :8) the Hebrew h as e vid e ntly lost some
III For th e student of Bible translations it is of particu lar ii1~ words, fo r it r ¢ads "And Cain said to his brother ( : .. ),\ -'lnd
,, tcrest to look at the distinctive features of a translation. Here :\tl~gii ' thc y 'WCI' ~ in the field Cain rose lip again st his brothe~ bel
we shall conce nt ra te all so me unu sual interpreta ti ve r enderings :, ~ii'"d killed him" _ All the ancie nt v e rsions, including the Pesliittil
10 be fo und in differen t books o f the Pcshitta Old Testament; '\8~ pply s'o me appro priatc words, u'suall y fILet us g o out into the
lI1 a ny o f these h a ve their roots in J ewish exege tical tradition. fi eld 'l . But the Pcshitta translator d ocs somclhing else a s we ll:
i;l ~ tead of tra nslating the Hebrew word "field" lite rall y, he rend-
It was pointed out in Section I that even the tr~ns lator "I·· . ' ,
rs 'it b y' "valley" ' (C(pqa'ta" ) . What is th e reaso n for this sce-
who sets O~lt to provide a lite ral transla tio n c.ann ot avoid choosing 'i{{ing iy ~~ ilrlll alteration? A clu e to th c anS,'ler is to be found in
between two or more possible interpr e ta tions in cases where. the' ~\l; E'~ ~~ic1 ' 28: 12 -14, whct'e Parilclisc-:.is__descril'!t-rl- Rs a " mountain.
t L. · !.·r ·,. , '
Hebrew origina I is ambi guou s or obscure. The Hebrew text of "fhei·c is no hint of this in the 'Hebrew te xt of Genesis, but Jewish
God 's worel s to Ca in in Gen. 4:7, Hlf you do well, will you not ~\Ild Christian readers regularl y understood th e topog raphy of
be accepted" (R evised Standard V e rsio n), is capable o f se veral 'S;~ ncsi s 1-4 ill the lig ht of Ezekiel (the idea w as also popularized
possible intc rpl-etations, owing to th e ambig uity of the word Hs 't"· i ~ ·th<:; no n~can o nical book known a s Enoch ): Paradise was undcr-
f.' ~"1
(ct will you not be accepted ?" in th.c RSV). Hs't" derives frmn the , '
stood as a mountain, and ' 'lhen Adam and E ve were drivcn out
verb Hnasa " whi ch ca n have at least four different senses,' all '"oX ~aradi s e th ey took up reside nce Oil th c foothills, a t th e 'm oun-
possible in the context: ~tain' s b ase : Abel and Cdin made their sacrifice on ' Oti C of these
~ f~6 thills , but whe n Ca in too k abel o rf w-ith th e inte nt io n ' o f kill-
(I) fraise up', in the sC I~ se of ' oITe r' . This is h ow the '. i;lg him: he took him down on to lower ground , in othe r wo rd s.
C reek Septuagint takes it (H If you o ffer well . . ") . ;<:ihc " va lley" whi ch the Pcshitta tr a nsla to r h as a'ctu:ill y intro~
tI uced into , the biblical tc x t here. Earl v' co mmentaries on thc
(~) ' lift up', in the selJ,se of ' accept'. The Syriac transl a tol- passage ofle n understa nd the topography in this ''lay/ ' but the
opts for this undel'st.a,n ding, and he gives emphasis to it by cha ng- Pcshitta is th e onl y biblical translation whi ch Ihco rporatcs this
a
ing the tense: he translates using past tense, Hqabblet" literally ,uuderstanding into the Bible _itself. - '
rt I have received I accepted ", but in the context this wil1 ) ,1 '(11 ,1 1 , ' . L I, " rl ( ", " -,
either haye the nuan~e ttl win. certainly accept" (that ' is, ' if I' ".,: According ,to the, : Hebrew tc-:<-~ or I G~ n e~,i s 8:5. ~o?-l(~/\~f~
you (= Caill) act well iiI flltur~), ai' HI- I would·, have accepted!' .~", ~~JanC1~ d on m ount Ararat (in Armenia.~ modern north e'a s~ J Turk,e Yi)
(that is, if you had acted well on the first occasion).Two Jewish ~ iind-. ; fAl'arat'Jl,w ill" be . found ~n laU mod cl'n , tl'anslations. ', In 'the
<. '\~ " 1-:·" " · · '·"",I.':\"I"'~ lIll •. fl· .··"
Greek revisers ofthc. Greek Bible have l~ a similar ·understanding., ~.,~
_" _I '
. .. cshitt.a', h owever; .
"
,the ,, ,csts on · ,'the ·_, Jnou.ntail~s
Ark ,r" ,)of: f"'lardu',
of the word: 1 ' • • ,':1 (,.: " II ., :,r.JIL '. , ' 1 ~ f ' .H'<ld"><.: " ·'1 , I
~;~'t!lah is' ,to say,' considerably further south, .in ,K,~ ; d~st~n (~~R cnl
t

,., :1" 1- , ' ,. j j ; ' -, 1;!1r{~

(3) ilift U:p7 in t'he sense of'folrgive' .- This' js how the jewish'
Ta ~:g4ms und er stood . th e' p~ssage (/r1xou will b e fO,r givcn").'
, J :idJJ.f -
(4) 'lift up" in th e sense o f ' suspend' . This understanding
of the word was c hosen b y the author of the Samaritan Targum
f ~~t~,~ .we s t . I-r~~ .) ,This J" w 'fs, ,not, ,of . c~urse , . al . ~,!il~ul ,,~e,t;td ~w~ng ,~~n
','f' n ::
I
p}h.e' part oLthe, transla tor: !. hcre, a~ ; . In ma.n)'~ o~t.~\~ r f:'p'l,a~,e ~ ..h ~ t!1~ ,
~-.-:~imply' following Jewish tradition which was ,cufl:cn ~' in. ri~ d~y.
f o f the H e bre w text was ' identified, as O-,"lrdu-r-- both by
~r6se phus . writing in Greek in thc.latcr : first :ce ntury A1DJ C!-nd by
).p c '·: jcwish Aramaic translations : of the ' Dible , kno_wn ,a sl tb e

'i

, ",~ ~ ~:;. , '-..:i¥ '-

 Old Tes tament '2 1
20 The Bibl e in the Syriac Tr ad ition
:Ilitle g ive n him of ' Fri end of God'. The setting for the ' trial of
T argums. Thanks to this id entificati on in th e Pcs hitta, mount .tAb ra ha m is thus understood a s being v.er·y s imiJ a~ to th e setting'
Q a rdu h as bee n a place fo r loca l pilgr image eve n in to the tri a l of t ri a ls of J ob, which were initiated beca use Satan,
tin~cs . . ,eAd ver sar y' , likewise d ou'hted the streng th o f J o b's ' faith.

Ge nesis 22 , on Ab ra ha m 's sacrifi ce o f Isaac, is a cha pter , und ersta ndin g of th e backgro und to Ge nesis 22 is e'' ''plieitly
to wh ic h we sha ll relurn la ter, in section 4. The Pcshitta tra nsla- , found in ca d y .Jewish exegetica l tra d iti o n; the Peshi tta, ho weve r
ti on of the cha p te r a lread y has a n u mber of d istin ctive features. .i s th e only a ncient t ra nslati on to have intro du ced a hint o f th~'
Th e t wo m os t p ro minct ones a re in verses 2 and 12. V erse two ' . ,. interpretation into t he ac tua l biblical lext. ..
1~'\ ' I • • .. , ,, '
provides t he location where th e sacrifice is to take place: th t; ..
.' ;1\" T he P cs hitta translation of, Genesis, a nd indeed of the Pen-'
H ebrew tex t has ' the la nd of Nfori a h' . w hi ch a llowe d la ter tradi,
S tateuch as a w hole, is pa rticul a rl y rich in li nks with co ntempora ry
lion to identify th e place as t he sile of th e T emple, since the only
.~Uewish excgetical tra dition, and this m a kes it likcly that t hese
oth er occurre nce of 1vl ori ah in t he H ebrew Bible is at 2 Chronic~
" ,books
, we re tra nslated by J ews ra th er th an b y Christia ns.
It: ~ 3: 1, which tell s h ow ' Solom on bega n to build , the H ouse ot
th e Lo rd in J eru salem o n i\{ OUllt lVl ori ah, wh ere the Lord had
Another place where the Peshitta tra nslation has a gre at
a ppeared to David hi s fa th er ' . !vl od crn tr ansla tions follow the
distin cti ve renderin gs, oftcn J ewish in cha ra cter, is the tw o
. H ebrew te xt ill speakin g o f tvl ol'i ah in both pa!sages, but th'e
of C hronicles. H er e, for ex am pic, ' a number o f th e place
a ncie nt tra nslators .kn ew o f so me qui te d iffe rent traditions: th t; :
nam es ha ve bee n ~update d' a nd identified with places in north
II G reek Septuagin t has ' hi gh la n~ ' in Genesis a nd 'mou ntain of
MesopGta mia which will have been m orc fa milia r to Syr iac read-
i th e Amorite' ill C h ro ni cles, w hile th e Sy ri ac Peshitta h as '1and of
- thus, fo r ·example., Aram 'Ma'acah- ( l- Chn 9:6 ) is .ide~~
·th e Amo rit es' in Ge nesis, and ' m ounta in ' of th e Amorites' in
'II
I " C h ro nicles. T he La tin t ra nsla ti on know n as"the Vulgate k nows
as H a rran,_a n.£i Ca rccmjsIL( 2-Chr--35: 20.)..with M ab buL.Q.uite
o ften ,till: Syriac tra nsla tor u se s ph raseOlogy wh ich is' typical of the
yet a nothe r exege ti cal t ra diti on, and in Ge nesis ' it h as (land of
visir)ll' , a n e tymologica l r en d eri ng o f iVloriah , Jinking i t 'with ' the ,J .ewish T a rgu ms (thoug h th ere are very few, liQ,ks with -the surviv-
'.Jng T a rgum to C hronicles, which is proba bl y la ter in date than
'I H eb'rew ver b ((ra 'ah," (to sec.' ; Jero me d eri ve d this rendering ....
fro m the earlier J ewish Greek re vision of th e, . H~brew I
Bible
•
by
'r
.Ilte 'Peshitla), Thus were the H ebrew has · .'In t ha t nigh t ' God
1p~rir'e d to Sol~mon (and sa id to him, Ask w hat ' I 'shall give
' ~ Symmachus, ..~ '(
S yriac; has ' In th a t nig h t the L ord w as revea,led i. ovcr-
The second distinctive feature of Ge nesis 22 in th e Peshitta The wording ,' was. reve a led ove r ' is ' charac teristic of
OCCllI' Sin ver se 12, where in the Hebrew (followed by the Septu- Pa lestinian Targ uffi tra diti on (a nd is occasionally a lso
Pcshitta P,cn.~ateuch), in co ntras t to the : R~ hylonian
I i I: agint and by all m odern translati qns) the an gel says 'fer now I
kn ow that you fear God'. By contrast the Peshitta r cads 'for now'" .. J~ r~~lar usc .of 'was rev ea led to'~ Another case where
, I hav~ m a d e known th a t you fear God' (th e text was often: later
_

~."Ii, p I I ' 1 d' , 1 " J eWlS

h ' 1 ' d"IstmC1IVey
;UtC' C !; utt;t ~mp oys . ",or mg \II l~ l f lS ,
'h ' .Jll
I
I, read as ' for now you ha ve made known that you ' fear God', . since , to lJe found in pa ssages like' 2 , ChI' 33 :7, where God
'I th e co nsona nta l text Cf wd' t'" ca n b e read either as ' uawd'et' ~, . hi,~ presence in the Temple ; in tha t pa rti cul ar passage :
I

' I ~ave made known' , or a s " a wda' t", ' you ha ve m a d e known ') . ....!";.," ~~~~brew h,as 'i~ t.hi,s House.a nd in Jerusalem ... I will 'put my "
ThiS m igh t not seem a very importa nt differe nce, b ut in facl it · 'name ~or eve r , hut In th e S Yflac the la st phrase a ppears a s .f I ' I
implies a ve r y different settin g for this tri a l o f Abra ham: : God
J a llows th e t r ial to ta ke p lace, no t to find out himself whether
, ... " . Luse m y Shekhina J the divi ne, prese nce) to reside for ever'.
; Gc.h~ ),h raseol.ogy is chracteristic of the Jewish T a rg ums,' a nd is "
Ab ra ha m 's love for God a nd his faith wer e stronger than - his love be~
., 1 found
:1 in' any -of ·the other, ancient , translations ' of the ·
for Isaac his son; rath er , God a llows it to ta ke pla~e because some '
of the angel s d oubt wheth er' Abraham is worth y of the ~l.'ec ia l "
 Old Te, tament ·, 23
22 Th e Bibl e in the Syriac T raditio n

One oth el' book · in the II'('!s hiua has close links \vit h the
T arg um, namc IY-Pl"oY..er.bs.- H crc the situation is u n iq ue, for the
II ])cshitta and · the T a rguffi·arc vir tua ll y word ror word the ~~mc
muc h of the time, a nd onc must definitel y derive from the other .
. One would expect the Pcshitta to be derived (rom the T ar"gum,
\ but 0 11 ling uistic grounds it can be shown that in fact the Targum
must derive in this book from th e Peshitta. This means tha t the
, Pcshitta translati on or.~· Provcr bs l is also li ke ly to ' have been th'c ,
work o f Jews in north fv[csopotamia: it subseq uently came;: to be,
. taken over by Syriac.spcaking Christi a ns and by laier Jews (who
lightl y m odi fied ,th e d1" lec t) ,
It is against this general b~ckground of translation a:ctivit:t
that we shou ld look a t th e Seventh-century Syriac bibli C:::fl l tra ns..
lations,. the Syro;.hexa pla for . the · Old TC~lamcnt) · an d ' the Hat' ..
clean for the Nc\-v . I,
The ,Syro-hexap\~ was primarily :the work of Paul, bishop o f
'l,'el!a, a sch ola r wor king at the , monaster}" o f . the Alltonincs ' at
tl~e EnnatoJ1 (or ninth milestone), just ', outsidc the great . citY ' o f
Alt:xandria in Egy pt. W e know tha t he was' engaged in the
ar duous task over the pel"i,od 6,15-6 17) . and these dates explain
w h y I;e w as ,wt looki~g after his . f1ock in'T ell,a , (in ,n orth Meso-
potamia): in 6 14 the Persians had in vaded the Rom. n Empire an d

It si~zc.
g. , d ;' . not only north
\ . ,
" Syria and
,. ~1esopotamia,
'
but
. also
. the
; ' holy
' .
In othel' hooks of the P e, hilta O ld
,,
'1 with the Targums are mu c}:l m or e tenuous, or ~ ltogcthc r absent:'
city ' of Jerusalem . , Only shortly a fter ,Pa ul completed , his work
they al~? to?k ' Akxandria,."nd , it i; f~r.~unatF\h,at I!is. tr~,n s\~tioll
In these ot~lcr b ooks the translators h ave introdu'c d mu c;: h fCM'c:;r'
,10
was • not Idst th en, PaulI 'was thus a refugee, and' It .IS'worth
~hat grea~ w~s '
. ' . " , •
'interpreta tive elcm ~ nts, and their rend ering is usually rather close
'~'J 'LO the 'Hebrew, thoug h in some books they occasionally . ma ke
l'emcm. b
• . ..
ering .t.his
' . ,
work of scholar
at a um«; o,f great poh t.l~al turmo~l and, uncerta inty.
ship undertaken
· r ' · · ,,' ,
.,; I ,J
~sc of the Septuag int in isolated passages.
I
I t seems that the . tran slation was commissioned by th e
~ (2), TRANSLATED FROM GREEK :
Syrian Orthodox ' patriarch Atha~asius" .' Instead of using the,
ordinary t~xt 'o f the ' Septu ag int, Pa ul worked f rom O,rigen;~,
I, , revision of the ,:S eptua gint, bringing it into closer line with ,the
"SYRO-HEXAPLA"
Hebrew. original. Origen's revision, .u ndertaken in .the· early .t1i ird
iIi' , , , ce ntury, was incorporated into a m assive six columned' Bible l .. ',
-Over the course of t he firth to Scvc!lth ccntUl'ics AD Chri ... t~; .
.Ii known as the H exapla ('Six- fold'), which " probably · contained': ,, : ~
sthi n litcl"atu re in G reek came to have great prc s,l ige in the ,t;ycs. o~
the. Syriac Churches. This' was ' due to a number , of differept, the H ebrew text)' \ fir~t . in H ebrew cha racters and th en in GreekU"
i'casons, but the' most irnpoi'ta nt o r thrsc w as th~ fa'c t that' GI:e~I/;
-'I' ~
transcription; tw o Jewish Greek translations ' (Aquila ari d Symm ''''''
t " ,
"chus),; ' Origen's ' own ' r evision of th e Septuagint;! ,,,,d"'another ' '
was the ma in cultural language of the castcr~l Roman Empi~c;. '~~~l a
Jewish Greek translation, by ' Theodotion, ' '\'au t:' tra l1s1 ted ' the '
~o the theological controversies of the' fifth and fo llow ing ~,en~}l1 1
ric~ WCI'C conducted primarily In Gree k, Since Syriac readcrs
fifth :~olumn, containing the' revised Septuagint ...tcxt, (, but 'i'n" the ' ,:'
ll1argin< b e ,om etimes included information t"ken .from the othel, ,,,·(i :
were anxious to be brought up to date in theological d eve lopme nts 1
columns; , it is for this re ason that his tra nslatio\t' ,lis ' known ' ,!
huge numbe rs of th eological wOJ'''s \ve r c tl"a.nslated from Greek '
'I into Svriac, 'an d b\' th e end of thC"S evcnth 'ce ntury 'a lmos t all th'~ '~
today as the Syro-hexapla (Syriae writers themselves refer to ,i t "

',
II
II Greek'Fat hers ha d' been translated iuto Syriac, , either in who le ' :C;;JIt
under. another name, ' the Seventy') , th at is,· b lsed ' 01\ the
Septuagint. Paul's transla tion re flects the Greek ' ve ry" closely;" " 0 ,

lIi"
I
in part. > A ~ time went on. translators, tr ied to represent
" the Grcf':k
more and m orc exact ly in S yriac al~d by the .Seventh ce nt u ~y,~.
IT 4 «~;

they had .. d eve loped ve r y sophislicatc'd m cthods of ' lT1jrror- t rall~::,

and this has proved most usefu l for modern'J sCholars'i ",seeing ':'.' \
that Qrigt:n's l:'f.cxapla has been lost, apart from 'a few' fragments :
(As we shall see below, in Scctiol1 ,3, Paul's'own ' translation does
IIi la lion \ aimed · at rcnecting' a ll th e- details of the G ree k orig inal)11 L~
, .f.~,
th e Syri.tC t·r:tnslation. ., lIot s urvive complete).

.'
 24 The Bib le in the Syri ac Tr ad it io n New Testament . 25

Th e Syro-hexap la enjoyed considerable popu larity ' in the 2, ·.; New Testa.ment
f l',' 1
S yri a n Orthodox Church a nd so metimes its text, ra ther than the
.,,( 1) DIATESSARON
Peshitta1~, was used in Old Tcstam '! nt Lec tionaries. Although
Timothy I , the patriarch of t he Church of the East, showed an "'-, " I ' · .
\!,' - J:: The harmony of thc fOUl' Gospels known as the Diatessa ron
interest in having a manuscript of t he S yro·hc xapla copied a t is' ass oc;iatcd with Tatian, an important Sy rian theologian w ho
the beginning of the eighth ce ntury, this version \vas neve,' used wrot~ in ·Greek just aftcr the middle of the second century ..... Tatia n
in the Lcctionaric3 of the Church of th e E 'lst; it is, hmvever, had stud ied in Rom e under Justin !V[artyr before returning to
quite often rel~lTe d to in se vera l of th e commt!l1tal' icsor
the ninth the ..east ,(his exact ho me is unknown). It is unce rtain w hen,
'l .... h~ .. ,. .- and in' what
ce ntury (sec Ser. tiofl 5), la nguagc, he compos cd the ' Diatessa ron ; the
I t js importa nt to rc'a lize that the Syro-hcxapl~ was , not work is unfortun a tcly . lo:;t, but traces of it can be ·fo und
the on ly source of knowledge of the Septuagint's biblical text . Christian wcst as wcll as in the Christian east. As [;\1' a s
for Sy riac readers. In the sixth centur y there were translation 9 Syri~c C .h urc1;tes a rc concerned , it is certain t)l a t the Dia tcss-
uf some individua l books o f the Old Testament m 3. d~ from Greek. nro~ circul ated w id ely in Sy'riac ~nd that it ~vas rcgarded . as an,
. authcirita.tivc form o f thc Gospc l te xt lIntil ~h c early fifth century,
(frag ments of a vers ion of I saia h survive), and it is p ossible that
these were commissioned by Phil oxc nu ~, bishop of Mabbug. ,Theil
. . ' . , ~
It was supprcssed In favo~r .o f the s~ par~tc - four.:. Gosp,e ls. ,
.
in his old ag~, jn thc early years of eigh t h century, the g reat 1<Yl : fo ~~~h ce nLU ~y ~t : Ephrem f vcn wrotq a .commcntary; on' ' i
SYl-ian Orthodox scholar Jacoq of Edessa undertook ano~hel' 1> ,
l.tcsS31'On,
", i i ' ,
and, it is this
.' I
work - which ist ·our
,
most
,·,
impo rtant
. I.
;'
;:..

trans lation from Greek, but also keeping sC"me clements fro m " i'ivitncss to the ac tu a l tcxt o f the DialCSSal'On' l l . • ~, : ~. I - 'f ~
....·'''';..,;:" I r.:\· : · ~lf'{ '. " ; ' 'I I.", '. ' ',' 't ~
lhe P es hiua.. His wor~ evidentl y cove red several books of the I . ' ~, . "
At,t thc time wh er:t Tatian '\\Ias com piling the Diatcssa ron
Old T es tament, but o nl y a few su rv ive today, (Pe ntateuch, 1-2 ·
Samuel, I Ki ngs, I s~ iah J E ie kiel and Da niel; some o f thcse cano ni ca l set o f fOlll' Gos'pels was P:o ni y .in its infancy,
'his /expla ins why he felt · ab le 'to take ccrtain' libcrt ics' with the
only in fragmentary• form ).
. ".'1 .
I,
...
"'l~xt ,In" !" 'llltro d
'eYl!n . up' ng, Il ~rt
' ~n d' . t I.tete ' lcat!-1:1'
r "e ~ W h'I" " "I l~O.t
Ie 1, ~.rp " to. ,,
\, .T here was onc further im portant source o f knowledgc of foUtia ' i~:th~ ' rour' Go~~p~.l sl· o f ~1atthcw , ~'Ial:k,; ~u~e.i:~l~'~l}~\~r~;,:,:
the . Septuagiat's ' biblica l tc::< t: this was not in th e form of an : : follo~v ~,n g (/a ~~ . thl~rC :~~laI?-p15s .of ' suS h . fca~~\l:es~ , l , ... ·• .1) ':I f ! I
a ctual biQlic.:"l.l translation, hut was nva ilable indirectly, in tran. .
!dation of the Greek Fathers into Syriac. Th~se Greek writers .. In M a tt, "f:4 ' and M~ rk 1:6. John the: ~aptist is , said ' to
ofcourse quoted the Old Testament from the Septuagint, and lived ! off ' locusts " and ' wild hOlley'. M any late~. read c)'s !
w hen thcir works werc translatcd in to Syriac thc practice of the that an asce tic' like John should have eaten a
r' " , . " • . • I" , ; . • ' !. ' ,' I
Syriac tran!lators from about AD 500 onward s was to translate ' llo.n..-vegc tarlal1 '· dlct;' wlt h l ' J ~cust~, and vanqus, .1I1~erpretatl qns
the biblica l quo ta tions from the Septuag int exactly a. they found tvc~~~ PUt < fOl"ward suggcs tin g that ' th e Greek ! wor,d ' ii' ' q1:lestion I .
", . ' ". t t' ". t. "I
. them (earlier they had often , adap ted the quot ations to the incant some SOft of !pla'nt. . T a tian evidently' took a more ..
Peshitta text, since that was the biblical text which was familiar radical l course;! re~ ovi.ng' th c offending word' u'sccI" '; by" Matthcv. . : ,. i.
to thcir rea ders) . It was through! these translations of Greck '!altoget h er~ and "subsisting " rm i'lk of the ' mountain !";"',!'
patristic texts that many exegetica l traditions base d on the :t.!t..":·\ ·~ .... l~;" ' n ~pti s t, accord ing to this new readi"ng, 'li vc'd off milk .
Septuagint, rath er than 011 the Pcsbitta, reachcd the Syriac in other words, ~ the food of thc Promised L and,
Churches; · we shall Jatel~ on look at IJilSsage .;"he re the di fferences de~teronom y 6:3), The Old Testament association was cc r- I
bctween the Greek and the Syriac causcd so m e intriguing pro- biUy~ii\t ehtionhl 'o n':T ntia;j's ' pa l' t:; for the ~htr y into ;th / ~ Pr1o- : I
blcms whic'h · have left: theil' mark in som c liturgical texts .". ~ ,Jas i seen as ta til t }i pb l~gittal "~9~ilterpa;tto 'CI1Hs't i ~~" ~ I'
hr,,; n"; ' : ,II', " , : l . ; ' _, , . e;:,' '! . I,' .) ,•• ,
(Section 7, on Cen 1:2)

,. ... t:: "

I
 New Tes tament 27

II 26 The Bibl e in the Syriac Tradi ti o n

followel's wel'e thr ow ing out th e O ld Testament a ltogct hcr fr om
In th e account of jesus' baptism in the jordan ' (Matt usc In the Church . .',
3:16, Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22) Tatian introduced a detail which .'
.The fir st and third of tht st! : a lteratiolls are known solely
is absent from the three Gospels: as Jesus entered the w~ter
fllo m Syriac and other' eastern witnesses, and they ' h ave ,lc'ft no
'a great light appeared'. This W.J.S certainly not an entirely
trace in th e western Diatessaron witncs~q,' such c.S th~ 91~,diicval
'\ new invention on Tatian's part; rather, h e was simp ly adapt-
ing a tradition already in existence th at fire had appeared at '
vernacular Gospcl harmoni'es:': Thusl there is' possibilit,'Y:: that th~y
'
arc the work of the aut hor of the 'Syriac Diatessaro n, ' r~the r than
I Jesus' baptism. In Tatian's theology ' (w hich " we know, of from
his Oration to the Greeks) light is ·, a 'much ' morc I. important
theological sy mbol than · fire , and it is ' probably ' for' thif rcason "
of. rratian. · (supposing 1 that he wrote" the Dbtessaq:m ' in Greck,
rathel: than Syriac). ' : : ',':: , . ! ':\ . I .:.I · "-'I ! ' , ; 1., ;
, ! ; .. .. :J ' ; " : '1 . '
that h e made th e a lteratiori (only on~ lette'r 's difference -in Syriac: ~
rrnut'a~' 'fire', .but u~lUhra" 'light'). . (2) OLD SYR1AC ," "
.', '. ,. , ',n"

The familiar text of j esus' words to Peter in Ma\t 16:1B
reads 'on this rock will I build m y church, . an d the ga tes of
hell shall not' prevail against it'. Here the "precise meaning of
'gatts of hell' is fa r from clear; nl~s t modern ' trans lati.ons take
it as a metaphor and rcndc;!' it by "'powers ' of death' (thus e. g.
Revised Stapdard Version, New English Bible). The Syrif1c
Diatcssaron had a rather different wording, employing 'bars
! of Sheol' instead (Sheol i,s the H,ebrew and Aramaic ,term ,' fOI:'
" : :rhe Old Syriac ,version of lhc New T"esta'm e,J~{ i~ ' k~oW n" to
\IS,Qply Jfrom tw d ancient J malluscripts, both' co,\'tairy.ing just th~
Gospels. , There must have been a Syriac translatib n"of the !r,~s't" of
Acts and the Epistles prior to th~' ti~c of ih~l pc;11itia ' ;revi~io~
(c AOO), sincc Ephrcm comments on th ese book,s~ I, . very tiui<;, ,,\ ! how-
evcr, can be recovered of lhe actual wo rdi ng u1 that ' part of lhe
Old Syriac ,"!n what follows ' the term O ld Syi'iae ,viii refer only
to the Old Syriac tr an" lat io'it' olfthc ·'Gospcls. ,; 1 . , <:' ,1:':' , , t,
. ~t , '''l' '''V'l~ rI ,, 4'111 '
11
,

,.
, ,.',
: ; ,11' 1 " .. ' 'I" , ".:,~ • • '. , 1 ' 'li .:,,;j fl ,' , ' " • .•
. " , , r
. ' , y.,.
,I ' !'I'! .J..,!)~:-I .,,1 ,
, I '

(h~ place of th e de,ad).'!. At fir,st' sight this leaves the passage , '" ;,T he ': twoll imantlscript s' .c oniii.nin'g tHc O ld Syriac O~SP.F~S.
I. just as obscur~;- ~~t, if. we realize tl]at the ' mcntion of 'bars' , a rc today known as "dlc Cll~·eionia~.' (9;" a~lcf ~·· ~rill~.~~, ~f~l:l,rc.ib!~: 1
carries with it an a llusipn to two O ld Tes ta ment 'passages, Psalm its first editor) and thc 'Sina itic (8; sincc 'the man'uscript b'~ibrig~ :'
]07:16 and I saiah 45 :2, then the int cntion behind the alteration
to St Catherine's tvlonastcry in Sinai). Neithcr IS comp l e~e, and
becomes clear: these passages, w here God is described as 'sha tter-
thc Sinaitic manuSC11ipt iSlloftc n I illegiblc since the original text
ing the doors of br~nze and breaking the bars of iron' , were h as bcen',spongcdll off and a'n othcr ·1 quite 'differcht , t~xi '· H.~s"thch:
intcrpret,c d in th~ e~dy Church" l's l'cferring ~o : Christ's descent heen su pe rimposed',-, goth ' C ' a nd 'S hnye 'I thc"' t~t~~ ~'r'Gq'~'p2i'p.r 'tl1;c l
I
Ii ,." into S.hF.91; By introc;h,l cin!j' ,tnF.!,llusiqn ~o ih~&1' Old Testameht ,· , , " \ ' ,I ., r ' -- , , ., 1 · " 'Y ' I II
Sc!}arate d ~ Evangc l~s ~S!}>I «.' ~ \\Ia~g:li9n~ I, ~ a- !Yrc~ h~rrJs,l,l,t '\ )~~~i.~ h, l~;
passage~ ~ h ic ~l ware :l~lt~n , a~ ,' pr£: figw:i"g, Christ!s , descent into
I eV idently 'meant t o dlstmgUlsh ' thIs Iv'c rSlOn ' of the , four separate '
Gospels, from the ' Gospel of the " ~r1inglcd (Eva hgclisls) ' , :Ewa';lgc'~
Shcol, 'fa tian is providing the reader wit h a ,clue , how to Inter-
pret rvlatt '16: I 8: C hrist is p;omising PetcI: that the bars and ,
gates of Sheol will not be ,a ble ,to prcvail ag~insL thc Ch,urch, lion da -Me hallctc, \vhich rcfers to the Di,ttC$sarun.
, • • r ,',' ' ' ,I •. J
just as they w~uld "not b~ ' able ,it? pl·evail .. aga.u,l st him " a t h~ s : ' " ;, ",., ~d -: i ,;
coming dcscent in~o Sheol; just as, ,h e would "fs hatter, the d oors' The date when the Old Syriac tr anslation ' was mqcic 'is
and 'break tl~c bars; ~f She'o l as he, rose rro~ the dead, ' SO too , very uncerta in, th ough , it: is now , t hought certain
.' tha~
1 1' 1' 11it/ 'is,' .latc r,
thal~ the D iatcssaron . -The ,d a tes to wh ieh m odern ' seho ars ,I h avc.
.

would thc'
,
Church at thc fi~;~l.rcsurr~ctjon~
' , '
' ' " ,j
: ~ • I '
a ssigncd the translation range from ' the late second ccntury to
th e early' ' fOurth century" (the two ' mal1\lsc l 'ipts lhemselves pro-
In two of th ese changes to the wording of th e text Tatian
b as introduced allusio~l;S ,to tQc ,Old Testament. "This, is in itself .... bably both belong ·to the' fifth century).
, /.
of intercst, for he was wdti~g at a time when rvl arcion and his' '\

\' . ,.
''"{":it';!'''''''
.. "-", " .
~1(.,..:.;..l·~'; " "I, , ' , ,
 28 The Bible in the Syriae Traditi on
New Testa ment 29
The t ext of the Old Syriac quite r. d 'ff.
hom the Pcshiua and th 's ' r . ~ ten J crs co nsiderably O ld Syri nc, bringing it into closer' line with th e Gree k. As
I 15 101 two maIn reason s' ( I) h
t e Old~
' . 3

Synac trans la ti on was made from G' k . . . \ve ~ h ave scen, the two Old Syriac manuscri pts C and S them-
.
In man y respects from the Greek t
a 1 cc text \\,]11 ch cliffe
.
are selves show tra ces of spora dic revision. It seems likely, th at the
, revision; and (2) the style of tra et~, un?erlYll1g the ' Peshitta , . of revi sion which resulted in the Pes hilta text as. we
least in I)' ~ ns a JOn I S mu ch m orc free (at
it was a long ' one, rcachin g · its completion in the , early
felt that :;::nlY;'i:~e~jd I~~:t~nmteernetstin(pg t1h'~ t th)e translator clearly . ce ntury. In its final form the revision seems to have bee n
. .. cs ltta llad great h
nty for ' his readers than the Gl'eek Nc T t cr, aut 0" 'Il:IaT' KC"Ca' very successfully, fer it evidently rapidly r.c placed
ada tOld l ' w es ament for he thc Old Syri ac a nd Diatessaron an d , became ' the standard tcxt
. p s cstament quota tions .in the G '
of th e Peshitta Old Testame t ' ' , b' ospels to the wording for la U the Syriac C hurches. Traces of the older versions, the
d' f ~ . n In anum cr · of cases 'h V h'
~ 1 fer s from th(' form of the qU 0 1::l tion found' I G cre t JS ano Old Syria c, did nevertheless surviv c here a nd
Testament Th' . . r In 1 le reek ""w,.,c both as isola ted readings in a few Peshitta manuscripts,
. IS IS In lac t a practice adopt db '
S)Tiac translators of Gree k patristic writinlTs a~ld i~ .manr ~arly. !ld . in quotations by later writers; thus, for example, ·the read-
abO llt AD 500 that transla tors chan e t e:' . I S on y rom ef the Syriac Diatessaron at Matt. 16:18; 'bars of SheaI'
to' transla tc bib!' I , ,' g heir attJlude a nd prefel' (as op posed to 'gates of Sheol' in both the Old Syriac a nd the
them ill thei r G lca kquotat JOns m the form in which they find Resh itta), is still known to many writers afte r th e fifth centur y,
ree . text. evcn when this '
WOI'ding of thc Peshitta Bible, may go agamst the l ong ~after the Diatcssaro n ilseif ha d been officially sup presse'd.
h',·,,.: It h'as been sugges ted th a t tl~e P esilitta rcvision was act-
.\ ,or I
Thc tcxt of the two m an uscri pts is by no' m ea ns u a!ly the work of the gre at bishop of Edessa, Rabbula ()v ho died
thoug h th ey have enoug h in common to ind o
both witnesses to the same t. I '
identica l,
Icate that th ey are
, ·.i ~\ ' 435), . This, h owevei·, . now scrm s unlik.cly, though Edcssa
, I ans a tlOn, Probably b tl (with its fam ous th eological school ) ma y 'h ave bee n ' t he place
cnpts have a tex t which l b . . . 0 1 m anus-
las ecn rCVIsed or '"corrccted' ' tram which the fin al form of th e rcvision w as propaga ted . It is
t I lC. Greek hel'c a nd th . TI " agam st
crc, li S wou ld explain f4 b interesting th a t man y early Pcshitta manuscripts co ntain , the
why S has the shorter endin of lVI k " "or exam Ie,
~~usebian canons' , which provide a co nvenient sys tem of cross
has the longe r ending (eoncluXing ata~G:;~),dmg at 16:8), while C
references bctween the different Gospels ' (each G ospel is divided
into numbered sections) : perh a ps this was a specific fea ture which
As one mjght exp t " h ' . '
of the Gospels the Old csc ~n t e ea ~'he" surviving Syriae te",, '
.. (>J
~i~tpinpanie d the new {edition' . of the Syriac N~w T estarrtent.
~~UI • ., 11 , II ' : :. . ' ,'" .,1 ;,: . } '
. ' ynac con tams a nu mbe f h' ~ ;tt:., , . The Peshitta covers o lll y th ose books which w ere regarde d
III gr'ammar and vocab I ' S. I' 0 arc alsms
to refle ct Pales t,'n,'a ll AU aJ y: r Ollletuncs these have been taken .by. the Syriac Ch Luch as authoritative, na m ely" the Gos pels, Acts,
ramalc .orms ( 'th th ' r '
" t~ c transla tors . were eithcr of . ~Vl • ~ Imp IcatlOn that ., Raulinc ' Epistles, James" I Peter, a n.d I J ohl], In ,; eN;ly
pDssiblY ·rhad access to oral tra:~~estm:an onglI~ ~hemselve~, or~ ;~~~~~~~:;:::~I~;~:::j:: the Catholic Epistles come betwl;Cn,Acts an,d
this suggest ' . I Ions 111 PaJestllllan , Aramaic): Y' ~ , Epistles, a,nd not after ', tlle latter .. ,.,2 Pet~~"~-~, Jqh!.', ,
Jon rests On . a mlsundcrsta d' r-
are best explai~cd as . 1 Ii n mg, Jor, the archaism.! t and R evelation ) were· not 'i translated lj into ) Syr.ia~ Ut;l!il 1 llis .
history of S ' , If survJVa s rom an earlier stagc in the century (possibly as part of the Philoxenian version,'though '
ynac ltse .
. .at all certain). A number of isolated
,not , , verses~ familiar
,
(3) PESHITTA '''''fr'
.:.'
<'II]"F.:n,[li"h translations of the Ncw Testament, are J' ,
also missing
Peshitta: Matt, 27:35 b, Luke 22:17-18,
.. John 7:5,3-8:11
~ , ,
The sta nd al'd form of th e S ' N T caught in adultery), Acts 8:37, , 15:34 and 28:29; il)-
. ynac ew estamcnt
]Jes hitta.t is
not a new translat ion from G k b ' " ~~wl~!',n printcd I ~ ditj ons tll ese arc usually , supp~ic.d .r.~9m ~o~~
ree, ut a reVISion of :
 30 The Bible in the Syriac Tradition
There is remarkably little var iation between different
manuscripts of the Peshitta New Testament: on ly a rather small
number of Pcshitta manuscripts preserve a few isolated readings
which go back to the Old Syriac. There arc, however, one or two
passages of theological interest where variation has crept in . The
most famou s of such passages is the end of Hebrews 2:9, where
manuscripts of Efist Syrian provenance regularly have 'for he
(Jesus), apart from God, tasted death on behalf of everyone',
while manuscripts of West Syrian origin have 'for by grace God
tasted death on behalf of everyone'. The variation has its origin
in the Greek: there the majority of manuscripts have 'by the
grace of God' (Uchariti theou"), but a very s mall number have
'without God' r'choris theou"). Scholars have long argucd over
which of these is the original reading, but as far a~ the Pcsl)itta
is concerned it 'would seem that, 'by grace God' (slightly different
from the Greek's ! by the grace of God') may belong to the original
Syriac translation, while 'without God' was pcrhaps introduced
into East Syrian ma nuscripts at an early date und er the influence
of Theodo;c of Mopsuestia's strong support for that readin g
(which for him had the advantage of avoiding a,ny idea of the
Godhead suffering at the crucifix,i on: it is on ly the Man who
,. ~ taste d death', not-God the Word ) ,
, . " (4) PHILOXENIAN
There has bcen much confusion among sc holars over the
rcl ~t ion shi p between th e Philoxcnian and the Harclcan versions
of the S~priac New Testament, but some recently published com~
me~tarics on the Gospels by Philoxenus himself have provided a
definite solution. Thus we now kn ow that the Philoxenian
version ' is lost, and that the very literal translation which does
survive is the Hardean (despite the fact that its ' editor unfor-
tunately gave it the title 'versio Philoxeniana' ).
The Philoxenian Nc~\' Test~ment was not a co~pletely new
translation, but a revision or the Pcshitta, commissioned by
I time and ' the need for an accurate and )ite,ral t'i'anslation" of the
I Philoxe'n us of rvl ahbug ' anp ca rried o';lt by his c h orcpi sco~os
Polycarp. The wor k was completed in 508. Although no manu-
sc~ ipt s co ntaining the Philoxcnian survive, a number of quotations
from it are preserved in Philoxcnus's commentaries on the
New Testament 31
Gospels; furthermorc, in one of these (the ' Comm e~ta.ry on the
Prolog ue of J ohn) Philoxenus explains why he commlssloned 'thll
reVISion. Philoxcnus, who lived at a time of heated theologica1
co ntroversy, W..lS unh appy with some rather free rende:ings in
the Peshilta of passages such as Matt 1:1,1 : 18, Heb 5:7, and
10:5, a ll of which havt! important theological implications for a
proper understanding of the nature of thc_incarnation. Philoxenu5
complained that the rat her loose rend eri ng of these verses in the
Pes.hiLta gave possible scope for 'a Nestorian~ ' interpretation' (as
he called i~) ; acco rding ly he saw .the need for a more exa~t rend~
cring of the Greek ne\v Testament into Syriac: He himself ,pu~
it as follows: ' '" ' '. I •
.. r',, : When' those of old ' undertookl ' to translate; these passages
t'ti,ey ' made mistak~s in many :thi'ngs, ~ whe~h~t:' interitio~ally
0 1' through ' ignorance. These mistakes · concerned not only
what' is ta':lght abrut the Economy iJ1. t~e fles h, hUf. vario~s
otner thin~ concerning different matters. It was for thls
reason that we have now taken .the trouble to have the
Holy Scriptures translated anew from Greek into Syriac.
Philoxenus' 'corpments on Hcb 5:7 illustrate ! the sort: of
wording he was·,'cancerned ,about. First of all he quote; what. he ,
considers to bC 'the..correct translation of the Greek; 'He, who I in.
the days of his flesh. ,,' , he then 'goes on as follows:
, "
In place of this they (the Pcshitta's tr!lnslators) tran.slated
'whcn he was .clothed in the flesh', and instead,l of trans-
. lating Pa~i the); inclined to,,:ards . the po~iti~~ ~r,J N.e~~
todu~, who ca,st the body on,to , the Word 'as ' o~e dOF~ : ~
'\gar"xnent 09to an ordinary body, or 'a,s purple is . p~t on
\emperors (these are both favourite analogies among Easl
Syrian writers).
From these a~d ' other remarks by Philoxenus himself,' we
can see that the prime motivation behind lthe Philoxenian ' New
Testa ment was provided by the theological controversies of the
Greek New Testament.
. It , is possible that the anony,ffious sixth.. century translation
of th~ minor Catholic Epistles (2 Peter, 2-3 John, Jude) and
 32 The 'Bible in the Syriac Traditi o n
-R e ve lati on may belong to the Philoxcnian New Testa ment in
which case th~y wou ld be the only surviving reprcsc ntat{ves
of this version. The style of translation would seem appropriate
______ for what we know of · the ' Philoxcnian, but against this we need
to weig ht the fact that Philoxenus himself ne ver seems ~ lo quote
from these books, which would be a little surp r ising if he was the
person who had commissioned thell' first trans lation into Syriac.
(5) HARCLEAN '
The Harclean version represe nts · the cu lm ination of th e
long proces's of rc~jsion of the Syriac translation of the New
Testament. Its author was Thoma.s of Harkei, who worked at
the same monastery as Paul of Tclla, outside Alexa ndria, and at
th e sa me time; he completed his work in 616. Their tec hnique
of highly sop histica..!..':.d li teral transla tion is very similar.
, wr iting material used is . either vellum : or paper, (wh~~~ .,,~a.~
'. Thomas worked on the basis of the previous revision, the
P,h i loxc ni an, and he covered the entire N ew Testament, includ-
ing the minor Catholic Epistles and Revelation. In contrast
to' the Phil oxen ia~, . where the motivation seems to have been
prilharily theological, ' the H .lrcican · displays ' a much greater
interest in Philo logical detai l: every particle of th '.! Greek origi-
na} ' is n'f!cctcd in the translatio n. Thomas regula rly strives'\ to ..~
ach ieve a formal equivalence between the Greek and - the S yriac
Ii. ~ext ~ with ~hc . result that it is possible for t he modt::rn scholh r
1 ' • • ~o . 'rCCOl~stn.,t ~ t ' the r' q reek text 'which he must h~ve uscrd !as the
1
I •.
I , .~ 1 . basis for his' revision: As a matter I of fact, Thomas'! did' hot con.
'
\r'l . finc ' himse'If to ope Greek m inuscript, ' for th ~ col ~ phon, or note
at the end 'of .t he text; i n many HaJ~cleall' manusc ripts "speaks ~f
his,having us~d. two or three different Creek ' m~nu scr ipts. It so
happens that ' onc of ' the Greek m~'m.isd ripts I \vhich I }~e ' \J.se d in
"1 Acts is o f great interest for the study of the transmission ' of the
.,!;
Gret;ki text' .pf. the New Testament, . since ,it l cont:dns . an ' .a rchaic
type of, the textual. tradition which is: . '.
not we ll attested elsewhere,
"r ! : . ~ .. ,',.' " ! / , 1/; .
'I
~.. The Harclean vers!on soon became; popular ill the SY1:ian
Ortl10d ox Church and it was often used "in. Lectip nary.· ma.:1U-
scrip~s, instead o f tl.le Peshitta.
I
•
11
'for a' harmon}' of the : rour Gospels
It was al so used as the bas is
which covercd · the . :Passion
, b!.l rrati~e·. i: .- ... ; \,' . ;. : :. :') . '~-.' -''1 . ~ .. \ . ,,'1 : ,
r l!
.1, .LI ,.,. • ."
SECTION III
HOW DOES THE SYRIAC BIBLE REACH US?
.. ' , " • . \, . 1 J,
'jt' .. ,i' ;' 1 . L
!: In this section we shall look at tl~e' w;~s in I which;;thc'
Syriac Bible i! tr<1.nsmitled to us . Need less to say, no a utogr'aph~'
of any of the orig inal trans lators sur vive; in the case of the Syro..;
hcxapla and Harclean, however, w~ do have so me manuscripts
;,vhich must have been written less I than a . century after 1 these
t l'ansl~tions h ad peen made. .! ., .,.. , ' J '{ d,,). '~:' I~drJ'", t I .
.• ' . i 't ' .; _; ! • 'il \j ' f,·· ,· r.';-I;.') 2 '/1; 1
I. " Biblical Ma nuscripts ,·t.,·; ,i ;, ,i..- ·' ,·",r.r.
•
··' P" . !If
A very large nUlp.bcr of Syriac biblical manuscripts sur ..
vive. These are always in codex, 01' book, format, and ~ the
introduced in .the Middle. Ages) .. ; The . manusc~ipts ,; cal\_ y,a.ry in
s ize, from the .ertorQlOus ·,'pandccts'., ·containing,. the . w!'tole, Oh~
Testament or. w.hole .New Testa ment (ve ry" ra r.ely . b,9.th ! togethc~), i
to miriiature manusc ripts ... written in a tiny I,sc rip'~ _, ~qnt;1injng', a
single I !book ; on', small ·g roup.l of. books. I The . v~.s,t 'I maj~~ity. , ~\ of
manuscripts, however, are of more pra c~ica l sizes, and no~mal1y
they , cont~ in a group of. ! b.ooks at a ~imt; ~ Occasi9.nallYH0n.~ .m~);'
rind a ibiblical book incorporated into a manuscript which other ..
,vise contains nOh -biblical texts . '1 ,, 1,; ",. ; Ii ,~; ,, :o.t: .) .;t: .
·.I .q ,,\,l ~ ' il l! ', .J:':;
. Many manuscripts have a colophon, .01' note by the .scribe ~ .
'. at the end,and this may give information about the place whe~e
thJ ' manuscript was writleri~ and the 'p ate, Normally ' the·jdatc- ds
given according ~o the S,cleucid era, or 'reckoning of. the Greeks\
,. or ,fo f .,Alexander · [!;he Great), , .,which l;>egan, in ,Oc~ober, I B C...!jl2.; ,,_
thus, for ex.a mple; · the year I 7} I of. the, S.clcucid era .\yi l,l .,~ort:~~ 7
pond to OClober. ,45,9 to Septem]Jer 46Q in \ h.e,9hristian .e ra ", "flu:
. . . 1, ()" .' I' II' ,~ .... .. 1 ;" ,- f" • : • • :·L)11I·'Pb'l1:; 1.;", i ~"'i!l::-' 1 1': 01
" '."'.' " ! \ • • <The oldest dated lSyriac biblica}.,mal.w .s:cript.. a Ir~gIllcnt
of I saiah in;th c British Library . (Add. 14512)"i" in f.lct dated to
.771 .raccording to the .Greeks', that is, A l).t:159/~q; ~ nothcr
manuscript arso in ,London (Add . 14425) ;,: .c ontail}ing \Genq~is ' F!-n~
Exodusj. is .dated : 463/4 . . For .the Pesh.itta . New :re s tamen~ l ~pe
.'
earliest dated .manuscripts belong to the early sixth cc.ntu.ry ~ thcr,e
\
..

34 The Bible in the Syriae Tradition
are; however, some undated ones which probably
fifth century ..
A few m a nuscripts contain more than one dirferent biblical
version a t the sa m e time, arran ged in parallel collJmns. Thus I
;---- there is o ne frag mentary manusc ript co ntaining .the Pesh.itt~
and Syro-hexapla of Isaiah set side by side . More frequentl~
such manuscripts are genuinely polyglot, and have
differe nt lang uages. O ne of the earliest pol yg lot m;anuscriipts-;~l
a ninth-century Psalter, 110\V in Lcningrad: this has
l hc-,- Syro-hcxa pIa, and the Ara bic texts set out in _three
iV[ore a mbitious in scope a rc a group o f
manu5cr.i pts evidently .:w ritten in Egypt, for the most paTt
t c~ded for litUl-gical use among the 'multi-lingual groups
monks in the Nitria l1 Dese rt. Two of these are Psalters whlch·
3!lticipate the earlies't Elll-opean . polyglot Psalter of 151 6: one i
th e m has th e text set ou t ill five columns, containing
SYI-ia c (Pes hitta), Copti c, Arabic a nd Armenian ; ·the other
th e te xt in fo ur column s, and this time the lang uages arc Ara
Syriac (S yro-hcxapla), G reek and H ebrew . The inclusion "
Hebrew in a Christian biblical manuscript at that ·time . ~,ce,ms·to.; ;
he without para llel, and clearly t he monk who compiled
manusc ript Inust have been a rema rkable scholar for his · urne "",
As far as each ind ivid'u a l Syriac version is concern~d ,
h av.c the roll<?wing picture:
\. OLD TESTAMENT (I) PESHITTA
I United Bible Societies),
There are very -few ma ~1U scrjpts containing the
Old Testament; it is significant that th e majority of these
long to the seventeenth centu'ry, for by that time the invention
o r printing had accustomed people to the idea of a complete Old
Testament, or a complete Bible: these ' manuscript's were ; in fact
\v ritten ' only shortly before th e first ' printed edition of
~v ho l e Syriac Bible · (the Paris Polyglot, of 1645; see below,
EDITIONS). The four earlies t manusripts co ntaining ' (or once
containing) the complcte Pcshitta Bible (Old and New · Tcsta~
mcnts) a re:
,.
Bibl ieal Manuseript~ 35
1:- ,the codex Ambrosianus, in the-Amhm.si~n Library,
'Ita ly (ms B. 21 Inf.; 7al in the .. Leiden edition of the
il('''hitta OT);-' this ' is written in ~ ' bea~tirul E strange lo " scri pt ,
can be dated to th e sixth or seventh century .
., -:- Pa ris, Bibliothequc Nationale, S y ri~Lm s 341 (8al in the.
iI .•·in.n. edition); thiS-is written in a neat Estrangelo sc-r ipt belong-.
. ,the .eighth century, and it contains , so m e: illus tr~tion s:
·"nr... ·" ;''< of Old Testament figures, and some scenes)., ! 1 ' --
- FIC?rence, Laurentian Library m s Or. 58 (9al in the
edition) ; this is written in st! rt o script which can b ~ dated
the ninth ce ntur y,
,l /, '
"
",
.
. -Ca mbridge, 'University Library ms 00. I. 1,2 (12aI'in 'the
ed ition); this is written in a neat Estrang~lo script which
d ated to the twelfth century; it also contains some illustr~ ..
in' the form of sma ll 1 portraits of biblical perso ns : : This
has im portant co nne ctions with India, for it wa ~
in Kera~a, Althoug h it was written in north Mesopot(\mia J
manusc ript was tak en to India, perhaps some time in the
century, fOI' in 1806 the Syrian Orthodox bishop Mar
ius I (Mar Thomas VI) presen tcd it to Dr. Claudius
Vice-Principal o f Fort William Co llege, Calcutta.
Buchanan ' ha d spoken ·to him o f plans to print the Syriac
:!Jl:ih]I~ ' i;n England , and this was the reaso n for Mar Dionysius'
gift. Usc was indeed made of ' th e Buchanan Dible'
manuscript came to be called ) in preparing the printed
~c<lit:iol1 , and when it was finally published (in 1823) copies werc
to Kcrala. (This ed ition has recently (1979) been rc-issued
I I
/
'. If we compare the content~ and· order of books in these
complete Old !Testa m ents, we will discover th at they a U '
,in several respects hath in the books they contain and in
ord er in which the y give the m. It is t hus clear that neither
Ilts ;[lOr ol: der of books was regarded as be ing at all fixed. '
fact hardly surprising when one remembers that
"1'lrIlISCri])ts .co ntaining the complete Bihle arc th e ' exce ption,
.' that normally a biblical manuscript will only con tain a
!; !:r'o-up of boo ks (such as th e Penta teu ch ) at a timc~ .
 36 The Bible in the Syriac Tradition Biblical Manuscripts 37

The order of books in the o ldest of these complete for b ooks ongmating in the patriarchal period . . This
Pes hitta Bibles, the codex .\Inbrosianus, has a number of . for J ob is in fact quit,e common in Syriac biblical man~.,
csting features which are worth looking at bricrJ y; the (thus it likewise follows th e Pentateuch in both the ,Pans
and contents a re as follows: Pentateuch, J ob, Joshua, luorr,eS!J ~"' ~" .I.. Cambridge ~omp lete Peshitla Bibles). " ' ' r ,', I

1-2 Samuel, Psa lms, 1-2 Kings" Proverbs, Wisdo m of Soll'mlo~!;;

Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, I saia h, J ere miah,
Letters of Jeremiah a nd : ofBaruch, naiuch , Ezekiel, 12
Proph ets, Daniel, Bel an d th e Dragon, Ruth, Susanna, R,a}',er'!'"
Judith, Ben Sil'a, 1-2 Chronicles, Apocalypse of Baruch, IV
(E;;dras), Ezra, Nehemiah, 1-4 Macca bees. ,
It: will be noticed that codex Ambrosi:mus groups , all th~
1IoE'oOks~ on ' women toge ther (Ruth, Susa nna, 'Es the.r, Judith ),
seems to have been quite a widespread practice from the
sixth century onwards, and this group of books i s.oflCIl- given-the
book of th e Women'. . '.

East Syrian manuscripts from the ninth century opwards

The con tent ~ have ;1 number of surprises, for
have a g roup of books entitled Beth Mawtbc, or fSess ions~
eluded hcre scveral hooks , . . lti c h are considered by most wesl:c,"'lj'
reason for this title is obscure); this. consists of Joshua,
Churches to be outside the O ld Testament Canon, a nd .a mong
Samuel, Kings, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Ruth, . Song of
th ese are several which are not eve n to be found in the
Ben Sira, J ob.
'Apocrypha' or Deut cl~)-Ca ~loni c<l J Books, This a.pplies
all to the Apocalyp:;.c of B:~n.l c h and IV Ezra, both of I ,I t is of interest to have some ' idc~ of the nU,mb,9." 'o f
long apocalyptic works or .Je w ish origin and dating .p,·pl,al, ly ~!an,useripts eontamJOg pa<ts of the Pesh itta Old Testamen.t . In
the latc first cent ur y A D; t he codex Ambrosianus is ' following list, arranged by century, it is important to rc-
Duly Syriac m an uscripl to contain these two books in me~b~r th'a t (1) the dating of Syriac manuscripts is often rather
arc SOffit:: extracts included i n a few Lactionaries). Both u'n certain (only a few biblical manuscripts have dates provided
were translated, into Syr iac from Greek, but the Greek text does the colopho nes) ; a nd (2) the great majority of these manu-
not survive (a part fro m a few frag ments for the Apocalypse ,of contain only a single group of books at a time (or some -
Baruch ); for IV Ezra t her e is a lso a L atin and a Georgian ''''''''' ' only one book).
lation in existence, hut fo r the Apoca lypse of Baruch we have
ot her witness apart from t his manusci"ipt and a ,Later ..J.>....'-"'~ ,,' sixth century - 27 mss (often only one book;and
tran5lation. often fragmentary) .
seventh cent. -32 mss (sa me applies):
The orde r of the books a lso has a number of s urpri s es~ . eight h cent. - 10 m ss
J n the first place, we can observe t.hat the scribe has for th e mo~ ~ ' . J i' ninth cent. - 12 m ss
part tried to arrange them in historical order, a~cording to tIle tenth cent. -23 ross
date of each book's supposed author. This explains why : Psalms eleventh cent. S m ss
(attributed to David) comes between Samuel and Kings; and ' twelfth cent. 9 m ss .'. .f
.', why the variolls books attributed to Solomon follow Kings. fI thirteenth. ce nt. 7 mss
also explains wh y Job fol1ows immediately after the " fourteenth cent. S m ss
' ,..
when o·n e realizes that J ob has beell identified with Jobab (Cen fifteenth cent. 6 m ss
ji 10:29); probably the same tradition was a lread y knowri by
.. sixteenth cent. - 16 mss
•• f'

" Essene Community at Qumran, for the only biblical maI1USeI'llpt~·' 'seventeenth cent. - 26 ross
,,
.1 from ' Qumran written in the Old Hebrew script are :t'; eighteenth cent. - 17 mss
the Pentateuch an d Job: ev idently this particu lar script, . nineteenth cent. .:... 23 mss

I.

'I
'-
j~
 38 The Bible in the Syri ac Tradition
For the rather large number of early manuscripts we owe a special
debt of gratitude to the abbot i\1oses of the Syrian Monastery
in the Nitrian D eser t (be tween Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt)~ ,.
for in the early tenth century he coll ected toge ther a fine library '
of old Syriac manusc ripts which he acquired in Mesopotamia.
i Subsequently m os t o f the manuscripts in the Syrian Monastery'g ,
Jibrary came to the Vatican Librar y (in the eighteenth
II' and the British Library (nineteenth century),
The earliest manuscripts arc divided up into unnumbereq
paragraphs. IL is intrigu~ng to discover that ill so me books at
least (notably I sa iah) these paragra ph brea ks very frequently
~ccur at the sante place astlfC paragraph breaks in th e two
Hebrew manuscripts of Isaiah from Qumran, as weil as those in
the traditional Hebrew text, repro du ced in modern ed itions of
the Hebrew Bible (the two system s are not iden ti cal, and the '
..
Peshilta represents a slig htly different third tradition), Evidently
th e Syriac trallslator must have taken over the paragraph di visions
from the Hebrew text he was translating. Later manuscripts of
the Peshitta often introd uce quite different paragraph breaks . ,'_.,.
The earliest manusc ripts ha ve no chapter di visions. The
di vision of books of the ' Peshitta Old Tcstament into numbered
'chapters (in S YI'iac, us ha he" ) js first attested in somc ' Ea~t
Syrian manuscl'ipts of th e eight h century; subscq ucntly this
, system was adopled by V" cst Syrian scribcs as well. A few manu-
"
scripts (s uch as the ~uchanan Bible) havc two conCUrrent systems
of numbering, the first being the standard system, and the other'
I being a cumulat ive system running right thro~gh the Old Testa-
ment (or group of books with in th e Old Testament) , It should be .
noted that these chapter divisions on ly very nlrc,l y coincide with
the chapter divisions familiar from, modern trans la ti~ns , of the
"
. Bible (for whose origin, sec Section I ),
I·
FiilalIy, before leavi ng the Peshitta' Old, Testament, we
should look at the way in which the text itse lf has , been trans"
mitted over th e centuries. On the whole one can sa y that Syriac '
scribes were ge nerall y very carefu l when th ey copied the l,Jiblical
text. As a result, we rind ren)a rkabl y little , va riation between t he
dirfercnt manuscripts (the situation is very c!iffercnt with the Scp::,
I ~. " , ,
Biblical Manuscripts 3,
' \vhcl' C great variati on occur's); moreover, where var iants
, they arc c ~ly rarei y of mu ch co nsequence. Nevertheless
pcshitta text is not entire ly uniform over the centuries, and
studies have suggested that the following is the general
~tiattern of development in the histor), of the Pcshiua text for each
"
O ldest stage. Very few witnesses [ 0 this stage survive,
~d~·often they arc manuscripts which pose panicular problems.
~i:vjseems likely that in this oldest stage the text · of the Peshitt,!
i ,}V~~~ rather closer to the Hebrew origina l than is the case ,with the
during the later stages. If we had more manuscripts dating
the fifth century we would probably be in a better position
hhl re~~vet' morc of this archaic stage.
.,
[2] The next stage is represented by manuscr ipts. of the
to eighth centu ries (inclusive); since we are rather well
provided with manuscripts li'o m this time, this stage represen'ts
earlies t stage in the history of the Pes hitta text \\thich we can
J\r~cove;. ' The difference between this stage and tl,1c oldest stage
'fully recoverable) are probably the result of attempts to
~~ooth over the original translation here and there , in the , inte,-
of go?d Syriac idjo~.
[3] The third stage is provided by man uscripts of the
nin,t h century and later, and is often referred to as the : Textus
f.dRe~eptus', or Received Text. The differences between the
Rcccptus and the text of stage 2 arc not very many (there
some 50 in the whole of I saiah) , and are rarely of great sig ni-
It remains unclear how or why this development took
:--9 lilCC ~ \\bs it a gradual process, contin~ing the sort of changes
had alrea.dy taken place between stages I and 2, or was it
'by wbat
. criteria did he. work)?
• :' 1,-~ ,
.
product of a conscious revision by a particular' person (and if
.
. The following are a few typical examples of differences
stagt?s 2 and 3, taken ,f rom Isaiah:
"
13:8 'their eyes will not have pity : on their
children') Textus Rcceptus h as (your children'.
'cri \~':' ;; ,'l
,
 Biblica l Manu script~ 41
40 The Bible in the Syr iac Tradit ion
12 Minor Prophets, .Jeremiah , Baruch, Lamentations, Le tter of
I sa iah 5?'.. 18
T .' tl·
lei 'C 'IS none who ta ke s he r b y her hand']
J ere miah, D an iel, Susanna, Bel and th e Dragon, Ez'ekicl and
exlus R ccc ptus adds 'and rai' ses IleI"
I . Isaiah. The manuscr ipt is written in a beautif~ l Estnmgclo hand,
sa .. h 66:2 1 'And I will also take rro m thl'm ,: and in the m a r gins arc large numbers of notes, usually providing
L ." '] T PIICSl s and
t CHtcs cxtU5 Rc ce ptus omits ' And ' variant readings derived from other columns of Origen's
1\- ost of
. the changes arc ve ry m. 11101, ' , an d arc'IP11"odl d' ' d Hexapla . In the sixteenth century the Syriac ~cholar Andreas
t o ac Illcve smoother rC3.ding. . Ice 111 or c r Nlasius h ad the use of anoth e r huge Syro-hexapia manuscript
\ vhich contained the fir st h a lf o f the Old Testament, ' but'
The Paris ma nusc ript of the ) . . unfortunately this precious manusc ript has subsequently di s-
srr 34 1-8 al) is r ' ,,' , entire I esllltta BIble (P.lris
. . 0 mtel cst 111 this co nn ection r. . I , ' app,e ared and must be presumed lost for good .
bv the ongll1al scribe bel . ) ol li e t~xt copIed
. oags to sta ge? !Jut at I
someone else has CO Ill C a l d " -, ~ some ate !' date The Ambr osian manusc rip t of the Syro-hexapla has a
i n order to make it COI~r o~g an I sys~cmatic~lly altered the text system of ch apter numbering whi c h is quite different from the 'one
01 m to tle 1 cxlUs Rcceptus (stage 3),
found in Peshitta ma nuscripts; it derives from one of the several
[4] In the course or the late r M'dd - .- current Greek system s, and tbe Greek na me kephalaion,
Rcccptlls itse lf underwent s I' I 1 Ie Ages the 1 cxtus 'chapter' (li tera ll y ' heading') , is emp loyed. R :n hcr surpr ising ly
. omc uri ler cleve l
m~oJving very minor changes ( robab l . opm~nts, mostly a later scr ibe has introduced this system into the ma rgin of
of scribes ) It so h i P Y due to th e madvertencc one famou s Peshitta ma nuscript, the complete Bible, 7a l, also
. appcns 11at the c·lI·r· t d
~ IC S prlllte
.
the Svriac Bible em I . d I editions of
• p 0\ C' ate manuscripts d h ' now in Milan.
r ep rese nts th e latest stag~ i tl I ' ' an so t ell" text
, Peshilta text. ~ It Ie lI ~ tory of the development of th e We shall pass ,over here the two other tr a nslations of the
O ld T es tament, made from Greek, the one p ossibly sponsorec\
b y Philoxenus, the oth er made by Jaco b of Edessa in his o ld '
OLD TESTAMENT [2] SYRO-I-JEXAI'LA a ge. Both these survive in fragmentar y form, in old manusc ripts .

Althoug h seve ra l dirf.. t I

the Syro-hexapla survh'c ~I~ ~n. ~ar y manusc ripts of pa n s of NEW TESTAMENT [ I] DIATESSARON
Testame nt; the two earliest cs~ , 0 not cover th e c!\l ire Old
14442 . I • 1
Yl o-lexapla manusc ripts (Add No biblical manuscript containing any part of the Syr iac
,I WIt I parts o r Genes is' Add 121 34
written in the sevcllth ccnt'ury tl'
' "
I " ."Ivlth ~xouus) we re both
, Diatessa ,:on survives, and the text has to be reconstructed from
' lU S ess t Ian CI ·r ht y the quota tions from the Diatessaron incorporated into Ephrem' s
a\vay f rom the date of Pau l of T -11 ' ," ;:, or so yea rs
S vro-hexapla r n " ~ a 5 ollg ma J tra nslat io n. Some Commentary on the Diatessa ro l} (whic h itself d oes not surv ivt;
~. anuscllplS contam sinalc b k I'
ha ve groups of boo ks. ,:, 00 s, w lIle others comple te in Syriac) .
\
NEW TESTAMENT [2] OLD SYRIAC
The most famous S},ro-hexap la rna ,,' ,
enormou s manus . . r ipt co t . . I nuscllpt, however, IS an ,""e h ay e a lready seen that Jhc Old Syriac sur vives in two
mellt, in the A:nbrosia a~~JIf~g t le se~ond h a lf of the Old Tcsta-
u
.fjfth-cenLU ry manuscripts" the Curet!lnian : and the Sinaiticu,s.
usu ally dated to the laten, :h" l, ar y , MI lan (ms C 313 Inr. ); it is
h S elg t 1 or early ninth c t d . Neither of th cs~ is prese rv~d in a complete 'state. , .1

t e yro-hexapla is translated from' . , en ury, an slllce

that the order of the b 'i I' l b ' 01 ee k, It IS not surprisill'T The Curetonian manuscript comes from the Syrian l\10Ila-
I ) Ica ooks I S that ~ d' ' 0
scripts of th e S . ~ ou n III many manu- , Sh::~y ~,. .i,n
the Nitria~ I?esert, and pn~y ~ ft;w years ~go a. missing
eptua(Tmt name ly r ' 1
Ecclesiastes, Song of S~nO'; sa ms, Job, _Proverhs, leaf from the
, manuscript (now. in London ; Ad",.
' 11451)
. , .'!,was I ,
v, \IVisd om of Solomo n, Bell Sira,

42 The Bible in the Syriac Tradition
II
discovered among the Syriac manuscripts sti ll rcma JJung in th~
\, monastery (three furth er leaves found th eir way to Berlin). TIle
!' Gospels arc arranged in an ullusua] orde r, :viatthcw, lVl ark, John,.
Luke.
The Sil1:\idcus CSt. Catherille' ~ l\:{onastcry,S ina i, m s syr .30)
was discovered in 1892 by f\1rs. /\~I1CS Smith Lewis, a remarkable
and very learned Scottish lad y who m:lde many discoveries of
biblical and other manuscripts in the middle East during the
ceurse of her travels With her twin sister, Mrs Nlal'garet Smith
Gibson. The original manuscript containing the text of the Old
Syriac Gospels was recycled iYy a certain John the anchorite in
I AD 779: the writing was sponged off, and the leaves were re -
used to form a. new codex in which a totally diITerent text was
copied (Lives of some women saints). The manuscript 'as we kno\o/
it today is thus a palimpsest, with ,the Old Syriac as the under-
wntmg~ Fortunately, 1f certain amount of the underwriting stiJl
1 shows th rough, and thanks to a great deal of patience, it was
! eventually possible to pul>lish quite a large amount ,of this under-
writing containing the Old Syriac. It is to be hoped that modern
techniques for reading p;t!impsests 'w ill before long enable scholars
to read rather more of this text which is of such interest for
biblical .tudics.
NEW TESTAMENT (3) PESHITTA
Quite a large number 'of manuscripts fram the sixth (and
'1 a few ]i'OIn the fifth) century survive; normally these contain just
the Gospels (and many of them survive only in a fragmentary
I
state), but one of the earliest dated manuscripts is , one .containing
the Pauline Epistles (A D 533/4). Perhaps the mo,t famous of
early Peshitta Ncw 'Testa'm ent manuscripts 13 a Gospel manuscript
dated AD 586, in the Laurentian Library J Florence; this contains
I la remarkable se t of illustrations., executed by the monk R abbula,.
I '(hence the manuscript is often referred to as tthe Rabbula Gos-
pels'; . thi ...Rabbula- should of course bt: carefully distingui.h from
. Rabbula, bishop of Edessa). ' earlier it is ~lot certain 'whethcr these anonymous translations.ar'e
'1·
The three Catholic Epistles (james, I Peter, I John) nor-
m.lly come between Act. and the Pauline Epistles. The order
" ,.
Biblical Manuscripts 43
of the Pauline Epistles is the same as the order familiar from the
Greek and from modern translations. Sometimes I at the ends
of the individual Gospels and , Pauline Epis.t les short historical
notes are given, such as 'Ended is the preaching of Mark, ~yhich
h e uttered'" in Latin in Rome', or tEnded is the Letter to the
Romans, which was written [rom Corinth at the hands of Phoebe
the deaconess" Though such notices are not historically reliable.,
they arc ,of interest since they show what views wcrc current in
the sixth century or so.
' As is the case in the Pcshitta Old Testament, ' there is re·
nl <1.r kably littl e variation in te~t between different manuscripts
of tile Peshitta New Testament. Only in a few Gospels 'manu·
scripts can tra ces he found of the earlier Old Syri~c version.
One of the few major variants, at Hebrews ,2:9, ,has a lre~dy ?ecn.
mentlOncd at an earlier stage. , .
NEW · TE,5TAMEt'iT (4) . PHILOXENIAN
" .!
"
,
In the past scholars have occasionall y tried to identify
particular manuscripts as containil)g the Philoxe~ianJ ver~sion,
hut these attempts were misg uided , and it is now rcaliz,ed . that
no manuscripts of the Philoxenian survive, with the possible exec·
ption of those whi.ch contain the sixth·century translation of the
books absent from the Peshitta' Canon. Our only direct access to
the Philoxenian is thus bi' way or the quotations mad~ fro,m it
which can be found in Philox~nus' commentaries ~nd other works.
The sixth·century translat ion of the ,four Catholic Epistles
absent from the Peshitta (2 Peter,2-3 John, Jude) is preserved
in a fairly small number of manuscripts, ' of which the' oldest is
d a ted AD 823 . Most of these manuscripts contain the rest of
t:rrc-Ncwli..']truncnt in the Pcshilta ve rsion (t his, for exam pic)
is the case with the Buchanan Bible), For Revelation, however)
the sixtl~.ce'ntuJ'Y t'ranslation 'is preserved in a 'single ' manuscript)
dating fro~ the twcJft h or thIrteenth century. : As \Vas menti~ned
to. 'be "identiried' as part of the Philo:<.enian New, .Testament,
, ( , , \;
or not.
.;
..
 ~4 The Bible in th e Syriac Tradition
NEW TESTAi\·lENT (5) HARCLEAN
The vast ~ajority of manuscri pts or the Harc1ean version
contain only th e Gospels. Sc.::vcral of these belong to the' eight or
ninth centuries . Fol' the rest of the New Testament, by contrast,
we arc not at a ll well off: for Revelation a small number of
manuscripts arc avai lab le, but only two l1ul1uscripts (Oxford,
New College 333, of the eleventh celltury ,. and Cambridge, Add.
1700;of 11 69/70) a rc d efinit e ly kn ow n to ha ve the Harelean text
of Acts and th e Epistles as well.
2. Lectionaries
The Bible was r~ad in the context of liturgical worship
from the very beginnings of the existence o f the Church (at first,
of course, it was just the Old Testament, before the written NeW'
Testament had come into being). In the early centuries of the
Church's life biblical Inlnusc ripts co nlainil),g the ~elevant parts
of Scripture were use d. In the six th century some Syriac
biblical manusc ripts p rov ided help in locating lections by inserL
ing lccli ona~y hcadinl-{s (so mcttmcs in red) at the beginlling of
passages to be read o n p trti cula r fe as ts. Sometimes lis ts o f
readings thro ughout th e lilU rgical year were compiled) but these
did not include the text of the tl ectio ns; a sixth-ce ntury index of
icctiohs of this so rt survives in the British Library (Add . 14528).
The practice of in corporating lectionary headings at appropriat~
places in ordinary bihlical manusc ripts continued in the seventh
and ei ~hth centuries, and so metimes later as well) even after the
adoption of the bright idea of hav ing se parate boo ks J conta ini ng
just the lections) and arranged in their liturgical order.
·It is unkn ow n ·when this idea of having a specia l lectionary
manusc ript for lectiol1s was first introduced; the earliest Greek
lec tionary manuscripts ·(a ll very · fragmentary) seem to belong to
the fifth ce ntur y) but the idea does not appear to h ave become
popular until some centu ries later. ·Certainly in the S)"riac Chur-
ches it is the case that there a re no Syriac lectionary m anuscripts
daling from earlier than the ninth century. It is ofcourse possible
th ou eadicr lectiollary manuscripts did once exist) a nd that they
have disa ppeared simply because they had more wear and tear
than ordinary bib1ical manuscripts; this suggestion) however?
J
Printed' Edjtions ~S
should jJrobabl y be reje.c tcd, for · two reasons: ( I) since biblica l
manusc ripts o f th e sixth and seventh ce ntury were provided with
',: lectionary headings, they too would . h ave been subject to the same
wear and tear; (2) we suddenly ha ve quite a lot of lec tionary
manuscripts dating from the ninth cc ntury, and belonging to a ll
t hr ee Churches using Syriac as a liturgical lang uage-the Syrian
Orthodox, the Ch ur ch of the East) and the Byzantine Orthodox
(Melki te ) Church ill Syria and Palestine. It thus seems likely
that the practice of collecting together the lections into special
manuscripts was introduced into all th e Syriac Churches at some
timc around AD 800.
Since different parts of the Bi ble were read at different
p .Jints in the liturg ical services, it became th e usua l practice to
have separate lectionarics for O ld Testament 1cctions) for Gospel
lections and for Iections from the Acts and the Epistles. The text
employed ill JJ.:..ctioifaries was normally the Peshitta, but iin the
Syrian Orthodox Church use was a lso sometimes made of. the
S.y~he:xapla_@p of the . Harclean : In particular) there arc many
Harclcan Cospel lectionaries which survive: Cri some Gospol
lectionary manusc ripts a harmony has been created for the
Passion narrative, hascd on the text of the Harclean; two di£Tel'~
ent sequences ~r e attested J and one of these is asssoc iated (in a
colophon) with the names of a certain Rabban t\'Iar Danici and
his disciple Isaac.
There appears to have been considerable variation' in the
allocation an d al:rangement of lections, not" only between the
different Syriac Churches, but also within each of the Churches;
I n- the Church of the East two particular systems in due, course
came to dominate the scene: firstly ~he (Cathedral' lectionary
sys tem of the patriarchal church fo rmerly ·in ScIeucia-C,tesiphon,
and second ly the monastic lectionary cycle ' develope d ' at the
Upper Monastery in Mosul.
3. Printed Editions
The first printed edition of the Syriac New Testa:
ment "as publised by Johann Widmanstetter in 1555 at Vienna ..
In the wOI:k of preparing the edition Widmanstetter , had bee,;,
 !i 46 The Bible in the Syriac Tr aditio n
II,
assisted by a Syrian Orthodox pi-iest , ~1:oscs of !vIaJ'din, who
\'
, II spe nt some time in Europe acting as tcacher o f Syriac to va ri olls
scholars. The te xt of this edition was oftell reprinted, so metim es
I in Hebrew ' characters.
For the Peshitta Old Tcstnmcnf the ea rliest printed editions
I
were of the Psalter; th e first was prepa red b y Martin 'frostius
r in 1622, to be followed shortly afterwards by two other ,:ditions
( , both of which were published ·in 1625, one in L eid en prepared
, by Thomns Erpcnius, and the other in Paris pre pa red by the
I Maronitc sc holar Gabriel Sionita.
The next two Syriac biblical texts to be published were not
[I'om the Peshitta, but from one of the later versions. In 1627 Louis
de Dieu published the H a rclea n Apocalypse (Lciden), and in 1630
(Edward Pococke published the four minor Catholic Epistles which
arc missing frum the Peshitta (Oxford ); th e v~rsion he pu~e d
was the anonymous sixt h-ccntury one, rathcr than the Harclccl n in
hUCJ' ,litcrature on the S)'ri ac vcrsions they arc often rcferred to as
the fPococke Epistles'). None of these texts ofcourse featurcd in
\,\' idmqnstetter's edition of the Peshitta New T~ tament, and their
absence had surprised and eve n shocke? European sc holars.
"<
; _ The cpm~lete Old Tastallent Pcshitta was first ' published
in volumes 6-9 of the grea t 'Paris Polyglot' (1645), ediled by
G. M. Le Jay; the ' edition of the Syriac text \\o'as ' the work of
Gahrie~ Sionita. The Paris Polyglot also il,l cludt;d the SyriJ.c New
Tes~ament, ' supplementing the Pc?hiua: text with the : Pocockc
~pist~cs' al~d the Harclean Apocalypse. '
, , t ,he Syri~c
..., ,
text o,f the Paris 1'olyglot '~erved
1
as the ' basis
for the next " edition ,of th e Peshitta " Bible, in Brian ,"Va lton's
London J~olyglot (1655-;,7), - ..,
I n both the Polyg lot Bibles thc Syriac text is provided
with a Latin translation. Their text is not a very good one si nce
vcry late manuscripts (all ,"Vcst Syrian), wc;"c cW
mploycd "a1 the
bas~~.., '
, TI~c nt:"tt irhportan t editloil of the ..syri'ac "Bible was th at
'prcparcd ' b)' Samuel Lcc)' publishcd in London in 1823, Although
I
I
I
~,
Printed. Edition~ 1?
the text was mostl y , derived fr om Walton' s Polyg lot, sQ rn~, u s~
was made of the Buchan,an , ~ibl~ ! i~ : pr~pari~g t~li,s , )~ ~hi~~.~I~~
edition . . The Old Testament
,
text IS unvocah2;c
, "
cl but
' !
th e" 'Newj'
Testament is vocalized. The contents of the Old Testamen.t
were dictated by rhe con t~nts ~ f the King 'James Version bf ~hc
Bible (t he' Apocrypha' arc absent), though the ord~r 'of the book;
in part follows patterns found in Peshitta manuscripts: thus, for
example, "J ob comes between Deutcronoll?Y "and ' Joshu~ , ', In ~hc
New Testament, how cvcr~ the standard order of cdi~ioris ~f the
Greek, text (a ud of modern translations) was followed; that iSI,
with the Pauline Epistles following , in.l mediately .. after Acts, For
' the hooks absent frem th e Peshitta , the 'pococke Epistlc~' anq
the Harclcan Apocalypse are employed , An interesting feature
of this c'dition o rthe New Testament is the prcsencc 'ofnu"merous
lectionary headings, which have been taken over frpm ,one of
the m anuscripts which Lee used. " ', '"J : "' ! ;
Lee' s edition has been re-issued by , the , United ' Bible
.Societies. (1979) , in a n expanded form, ' and with a brief prefac<;
b y the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Ig nalius Ya 'qub III. . Th~
added material is the text of the Deutero-canonical books, under
th e "tit}c CRooks' of \h~ Apocrypha' ; theSe "l aTe rep'roduceH from
handwriting (Serto) 'anel" include the follo"wing:' Wisdom fof Solo!.
mon, Ben Sira, 2 Letters of Baruch, Letter 0[. " Jeremiah, .1 1-2
~lla cca bee sJ Touit, Judith, supplimen ts to.I~sthcr, Susa,n;n,a .
, , i' .' \ ,) .1 ' "
'The fir st printecl" editi·on of the Peshitta base d 'at least in
part on East Sydan manuscripts , was published 1n Urmia ' (NW
[ra n ) in 1852 by th e American Pres~yteriari Mission. ,The
edition ha s a yfodcrn Syriac translation (from' Hebrew j"'rather
th an frorfl the Peshitta) in parallel columns. The Urmia edition
served as the basis for another edition usin g the East Syrian
,script, published by the Trinitarian Bible Society in ;N~w York
(1913) and ,often reprinted. , Both these editions follow the ordcr
of books" .ramili~r from most English tran s la~.i(;)J1s. '")" ' ,:
, ' ... ! : ['
Another, ,edition of the ' Peshitt a using East Syrian manus-
" , I "
cripts (a nd including the New Testament) ,was ' publislW9' by the
Dominica~ Fathers at l Mosul in 1887-92 (in three voht,~e s)j this
had .been prepared by Clement Jose ph David , Syrian Catholic
 I;
Printed Editions ~9
Ii 48 The 8ib Ie' in the Syriac Tradition
I'
m~\ nuscrjpts,
without the text); Apocrypha :(P, de Lagarde, '1861;
f'>rchbishop of Damascus. and George Abdisho Khayya t, Cha i;
ba sed on early manuscripts in the British Library); vVisdom , of
,daean Archbishop o f Amid (Diya,'bekir ), The order of the Old
Solomon (J. A. Emerton, 1959) .
" Testament book is the sa me as that o f the Unnia editio n, but
.ill ~crlcd among them a rC the so-called D c ul c ro~canollical books
I' (abs'c nt fr om Protestant Bibles), such as \oVi sdom o f Solomon
_ In the 1950s the International Organisation for the Study
of the Old Testament began to make plans ior a critical edition
:al1d 'Ben Sira (between the Song of Songs a nd Isaiah) . The New
of the Peshitta Old Testament, and in 1959 Professor P eA. H. de
f )'cstament foll ows the stand,ard G reek order; fur the books not
in the Peshitta use is made of tlie . Pocockc Epistles' and the
Boer, of the Uni versity of ' Leiden in Holland: was appo inted
general editor. In 1961 the new Peshitta Institute at Leiden

!
J-Iarclcan Ravclation.
' The Beirut edition of the Peshitta (1952) is largely b as ed
'on' the Mosul edition.
r· ·'· .
: ." . All tbe editions rn~ntioncd so far arc based on late and
'bften hot very good manuscripts. ' For most purposes this,may not
matter very much, but for more -scholarly pui-poses it is obviously
im'port~nt , to hav~ a r:t0~c reliable tcx,t of the Pcshitta available.,
b ased on the oldest manuscripts. This is essenthil,' for example, if
'o ne 'wishes ~o study the Peshitta Old Tcstament as a translatiori
pllblished a preliminary List of Old Testament Peshitta Manu7
scripts, prepared largely by W. Baars and M. D. Koster. (Every
now and then supplements to this invaluable basic list arc 'pub ..
lished in the periodical ' Vetus Testamentum)', ' ;Five ,yea'rs later )
in 1966, 'a sample edition containing the Song of Songs, ,Tobit and
the Apocalypse of Baruch was ·published . . Over the follO\yil)g
yea rs th e following volumes have appeared:
I Genesis and Exodus (e d. T. Jansma,
M. D. Koster, 1977). • .

I 'of the' H ~ brcw.

, , '
; ,
fIn the last ce ntury Of" SG variou s atlempts have been made
by scholars to produce bcttcr cditions of the Sydac Bible. Tho
II

II
2 Jupges and Samuel (ed. P. B. Dirksen,
P. A. ,H. de Boer, 1978).
3 Psalms (ed. D. M. W a lter a nd others, 1980).
II' 4 ' Kings (cd. H. Gottlieb and E. Hammersh aimb
following are some of thc mOI-c imponant; 1976).
, ,t' I . .

(a) Old Testa.m ent (Pcs hitta) .II , 5 ~rov~rbs, Wisd.om of Solomon, Ecclesiastes;_'Song
of Songs (ed. A. A. di LelIa, J. A .'Emerton;· i .' ,
- Beginning in 1876 A.M. Ceriani started to publish a n. J ; Lane) .- ___ "i '~""r :i: , !" ';""~
photo-lithographic repmd lIctinn of the Old Testament te .• t of the
III Isaiah (ed. S. P. Brock, 1987). . .. ..
fairious Ambros ian manuscript of th e Pcshilta (7a l); this work,
completed in 1883, made available for the first time the text of III la Job (ed. , L. G. Ringnell, 1982). '
the oldest surviving manu script of the complete Peshitta O ld III 3 Ezekiel (ed. M. J . Mulder, 1985).
Testament. III 4 Twelve Prophets, Daniel, Bel and \h~'l D(a~OI~" 'J'

- Various scholal-s have prepared editions of individu!l l

books of the Peshitta Old T estament, based o~ the 'oldest manu" IV , 3
(ep. A. Gelston, T. Sprey, 1980)., ' ,
Apocalypse of Baruch and 4 Esdras (ed. R. J.
•., . :

scripts ava ilable. These include: th e Pentateuch (W. E. Barnes ~ Bidawid, 1973).
19 14; a revision cf the text in Lee's edition usjng old manuscripts) . '
IV 6 Canticles or Odes: Prayer of Manasseh, Apocry';'
, Psalms (W.E.Barnes, 1904); Isa iah (G. Dietlrich, 1905; no tex ~ is
phal P salms, Psalms of Solomon, Tobit, 1 (3) ,
gi,v en, but there is a full l~st o( variant readings to be found in 22
Esdras (cd .' H. Schneider, W. Baars " ; " . ,I,' i
manuscripts is g iven ); Lamentations (B. ~lb'r~kt!!on, 1963); Chro:,
J. C. H. Lebram, i972). .' '; '," . .. ..
nides (W. E. Barne!!, 1097; list' of variant readings in several early

1
\, I ' •. •• ",
 50 The Bib le in the Syriac Tr adi ti o n
It is hoped to complete the edit ion some time in the 19903 .
Estarngelo script is used throug hout. The text printed is basically
th at of the Ambrosian manuscript . . 7al, though its man ifest errors
are corrected. Below the text there is an apparatlls wh ich gives
all the varian ts to be found in ma nuscr ipts before 1300 (ob vious
errors and orthograph ica l differences arc excluded there, but
r eceive mention in the introductions to each volume, where the
manuscripts u sed a rc described ). Edit ions carlicr th an 1977
give variants in later manuscripts as well, and the text in these
volumes adheres more rig idly to 7al than is th e case in later
volumes. The importan ce of the Lcidcn edition lies ,in the fact
that it provides for the first time information ahout the carliest
forms of th e Pcshitta text, before the deve lopment ot t he medi-
eval Textus Receptus (w hi ch is t he ln sis of a ll th e o ld er editions
of · th e l'es hitta Bible).
(b) NelY Testament ("<s hi tta)
- Fo r the Peshi tta Gospels an edition (wit h f~lcillg L at in
t rans lation ) b.tsed 011 a conside rah le number of the earliest sut'-
VIVWg manuscripts was prepared by P. E. Pusey and published
(after Pusey' s d eath) b). G. H. Gw illi am in 190 1. The intent ion
had been to cover the: rest o f the New T estament, but this never
came to fruition; the provisional text for this ed ition, however,
was published . without any var i:lnt readings , by the British
and Foreign Bible Society in 1920. This edition of the Peshitta
Ne\\' 1~e s t ament, printc d ill voca li zed scrto sc ript, is the most
reliable o ne available, and it has been reprinted .m any times.
The Syriac order of books is fol lowed; wit h J ames, I Peter a nd
I J ohn coming after Acts . Use was made 'Or'the ' ano nymous
sixt h·century translation for th e minor Catholic Epistles (t he
'Pococke Epist les')' a nd R evelation , since these arc absent fr om
the Pcshitta; th e text of these was based on the exce llent editions
b y J. Gwynn (minor Catholic Epistles, 1909; Reve la ti o n, 1897) .
These a re a ll printed together at the cnd. For odd verses abse il t
from the l'eshitta (notably John ·7:53 -0 :1 1) a later translatioll
has been inserted ' bet ween sq uare ' brackets. Besides the western
chapter an.d verse numbers, t.h e native Syriac section numbers
(!'sha hc") are given in. the marg in (these very rarely corres-pon d
wit h the western chaptcl' ~ h:i s ioIl5) .
,.
Printed ' Edit ions 51
- In 1983 The W.ay Internat iona l (New Knoxv ille, Ohio,
USA) publ i s h~d a volume e ntitled 'The Aramaic New T estament,
'Estran geio sc ript. based on the Peshilta and aarklean Versio~s'.
'I'he Peshiua text is taken from three early m anuscripts in the
British l.i brary. but for the books absent from the Peshitta, the
text of Gwynn's editions of the anonymous sixth- century' versions
is used (the tit le page a nd Introduction mistakenly call th em the
Harc\ean). The order of books fo llows that of editions of the
Gree k text an d of modern translations. Thoug h in ' many ways
this is a practi ca l edition} with a good text a nd clearly printed;
the abserice of a ny punctuation marks · (beyond dverse ivisions)
ma kes for difficult reading, especia ll y in the Epistles.
- The Institut fur neutcstame n tliche T ext forsc hung at
Munster '(West Germany) is in the process o f editing the Syria~
New Testament in both th e P eshitta and th~ Harclean versions:
The first volu me of this importa nt scholarly enterprise covers the
major Catholic Epistles (James, I Peter, I J ohn), and was pu b-
lished in 1.986 (cd. B. Aland).- For the Peshitta a selected group
of nine early manuscripts has been used, wh ile for the I-;larc1ea.n
a ll three ava ilable manuscripts are employed . . A notable feature
of this ed ition is the extensive use made of quotations from the
New Testament in . Syriac writers. The text of the P es hitta,
Harclcan and the various quotations is set out line by line so
tllat that Olle can immediatel y sec th e differences between them :
There is a long introduction dc .... li ng · w ith the t ransmission o f
the text and the relationships be t wc~1l th e Syriac texts fLn~t their
underly ing Greek originals. . I
(c)
"'"
iviai ll Syriac ve rsi ons other than the Peshirta. : ':
For the Syro-hexapla the most impo rta nt ed itions 'are: ..... '
- the photo-Hthographic edition of the :M ilan m anusc ript
'(C: .3 13 ,InL ) containing the second h a lf . of the .Syr,q -hexapla,
published b y A. M. Ceriani (1874). .[
. - th e collection of all Syro-hexapla .texts aya!'ablefor th ~
: .
first ha lf. of the O~d Testament by P. de L agarde and ,A.. .l~.ahlf~
(Biblio thecac Syriacae, 1892). . .
.
.'
 ,
"
52 The Bible in the Syriac Tradition
I Translations 53

- a collection of New Syro- Hexapl" ic Text" edited by 4. Translations

W. Baars (1968. with a va luable introd uction on the history
;: of earlier editions). The Peshitta has been translated into a number of different

~ - a photog raphic edition, by A. V oo bus , of a Syro-hc:xap la

i~nguages over the course, of its ' history; I.mosi of ' ihesc .are old
ones, such a s translations into' Pe}sian and Sbgdia n (only fragments
m f,nuscript of the Pentateuch dated 1204 (1975). , of these survive). Many transla tions of different parts of the
f: ~or
'. \: ',.: the anonymou, sixth-~entury version 'o f the minor
lleshi,tta I into. Arabic were , made .in th e. Middle. ~gesJ.,.~nd . one
sOll?-ctimes finds (especially in lectionary manu'~cripts) .the Syriac
Catholic Epistles and Rev,e lation, meillion has a lready been made and Arapic i!1 parallel columns (the. ~rabic often \vrittcn in ' Syri~b
pf t he editions by Gwvnn (1897 for Revelation, 1905 [or the sc ript, kpown as Karshuni). " ' . .. "
. ' I .t .
mino( Catholic Epistles).
., "'!t~· .th~ P~lyglot . editions "or the Bible 'the 'peshitta t~xt'~a~
The only edition of the Harclean New Testament wa, provided with a Latin tr'~ns lati on . 'I'! ;. : ! "J " 'J' ( - .
1. :1: ., .
publised long ago ·by. J. yVhite (Gospe ls, .1178; Ae\s and Epistle" •. • • • t .

1799,1803) . The work was given the misleading til Ie Versio Syriaca . The 0I1 ly .coniplete English translation o f tlie Pcshitta is by
Philoxc nian a; today, however, it is known for ce rtain that the C. Lamsa. This is unfortunately not always v~ry' accurate, and
text of vVhite's ed ition is the HarcJe,lll , and nol the Philoxcnia n. hj ~ claims that the Pcshitta Gospels represe nt the Ara maic
original underlying the Greek , Gospels are entirely w ithout found-
Ii The end . of White's manuscript is IpSl, anq so his edition ends at
:r.rcbrcws II :27. The rest of Heb rews \Vas published froff.1 anothel'
manuscript by R. Bensly (1889). The Hardean text of Revelation,
ation; such view~, which arc not infrequently found in : more
p op ular literature, are rcjected by all serious scholars . ." .. ; "
.,
l first published by L. Dc Dieu in 1627, appears in most subsequent
There is an ~l<;ler . English translation of the Peshitta
., New
editions of the SYI'iac New Testament published in the eig hteenth
Testament b y James Murdock ( 1893).
and nineteenth ce nturies. A photographic edition of a further
manuscript of the Harclcan text of Revelation has rccendy been A .good
I published by A. Voobus (1978) . T here is also a separate edition , modern , translation
'
of the Peshiua, or at least of
j passages used in the lectionary J is very much necdc?" . ,,: I
of the Harc1ean text of SI. John (G. H .Bernstein, 1853). I .
I (d) Tools
there seem to ue at least three translations of the Pcshitta
New Testament into Malayalam.
II There are no complete concordances to the Syriac Bible
available yet. For the Peshitta Old Testament there are a number
.,
.'----.
,

of concordances to individual books available (mostly prepared

I by W. Strothmann and assistants); thc~c are based on some of the
older printed editions.

II A co ncordance to the Peshitta New Testament was prepared

by A. Bonus, but this has never beell published. The so-called
Concordance to the Peshitta Version of the Aramaic New Testa- , I'"
.,

ment ( 1985) is in fact not a concord a nce, but a word list. A handy
Syriac-English dictionary ' to th e S yriac New Testament was '" ~ . .j'
published by W. Jennings (1926). . .•..
" Biblical Inte rpr etation, : .
i, SECTION IV
I r a ti on .
,B,IBLicAL INTERPRETATION IN THE
!' ~YRIAC TRADITION
The Bible can be interpreted on lJl:1.n y different levels.
For our prese nt purpose it will be sufficient to follow th,e practice
of several Syriac writers and to d isti nguish between two di fferen t
modes of interpretation. St. Ephrem a lready makes the distin-
cti on between tfactua l' and 's piritual' interpretation (tod ay we
might prefer t o call the fi rs t of these rhistorica l' ). The factua l
01' historical interp re ta ti on is pr imarily concerned with illumina -
ting the circumstances surrounding episodes in the Bible: w ho
were the people involved, when a nd where did they live, and
I so on. The spiritual interpretatio n, on th e other ha nd, ·is· con-
cerned with th e eternal truths undedying , the text; it seeks to
penetrate beyond the su rface meaning to t he various .inner
I m eanings. '
Where historical intcrpretat ion is concerned we are d ealing
with facts, a nd we ca n speak of a historica l interpretation as
being 'correct' or 'incor rect', or as ' ri g ht' or 'wrong' (though
,oft,en we do not have sufficient evidence to d ecide conclusive ly
between. the ~wo) .. This is quile different fl:om th e situation wi~h
sph'itu a l interpretation: here it is not a case of one interprenition
,. bcing ' lright and a noth er wrong, for thefe is never one' ~correct'
interpretation to t he exclus ion o r all 01 hers , Often severa l spir i-
I tua l interpretations m ay be sim ult aneous ly vdid. ~f.or a spi rit u; 1
interpretatio n to be va lid, it must be meani ngfu l in a particula r
I context; and to be meaning ful , it must provide insight on the
wo rld of obj ec tiv e spiritua l tTutti ' or ~ reality. The'se two crite ria
are if!lportant: th e first helps us 't o re'a lize that the samc spititual
interpretation may be valid (that is, meaning ful) to onc pe rson,
but not to another; or it may be meaning ful to the same person
a t one time, but not at another. The second criterion is important
ctive spiritua l t r uth is much more likely to - b found w ithin
-- -
ecause- spir...i\.ual interpretation which 'iprovides insig ht on obje-
or th odox C hristian traditiOli-'th a n-iri' somc othcr form of Christi-
~\nity w hich is g ive n to an individualistic and highly subj ec tiv e
/
interpretation of Scripture.
\,
,.
.
,
55
Histo rica l and spi.ritual interpretation of Scripture . thus
opera te in ve ry diJfcrcnt ways, each wit h ,its own mo~e o~ ope ..
Historical int~rprc[ation provides us with ' the ,: outer
m ea ning,; spiritual interpretation ' dir ect s u s towards . the inner
m eaning of the biblical text. The two app'r oac.:hcs . should com·
lJlcm ent one anot her, but a ll too often their proper roles have
b een; misunderstood , and the criteria b,elonging to th e one .. have
heen misg uidedly applied t~ the other. lThis h as gi ~cn ris,c " to all
so rts of misconceptions, suc h as th e idea th at biblical sc holar ship
is d angerous or harmful to faith. Iv1uch m ore. dangerous, and
s piritually' ha rmful, is the fund amenta list approach, to th c ' Biblc
w hi ch co nfuscs spirhua ltruth with historical truth, thus crca ting
a totally un necessary co nflic t' 'bct\vecrr: religion-and science. I
With these rather lengt hy preliminaries we can no~~P tUrn ,to
the Syrian interprctation of Scripture: T I~e Sydac Fathers are
interested both in tfacluaP , or rhistorica l' , . and in (s~iritu al'
in terpre tation, th ough not 'surprisingly the y pay greater 'attention
to the latter. ' Since mo d ern historical undcrs tandi~g ." of the
Bible and its ' Qackgrou nd is vastly ' sti perio r '10 :'th'~i \ ' 'of the
Syriac Fathers (t hanks to t he advances in biblical ,t s~ i; olarship
over the las t , centur y), wi)at th~ Syriac F at hers have to ' sayan
the ' level ' o'f historical ' interpretation is''' v'c ry :ral'cly ' :"df morc
. . I. , :~' , ' . ,. .
than ,.an~i.ql;l.arian ,Int~ res t., vV!'tat they .have to say in U~c area
of spirjtual int'c rprctation, ' however; has' ' b'~ ' no r nie'~Ns ' been
superseded, \ an,d · much , of what ; ~hey s~y C~~ , P,c j~.ts.t . a ~ :I ~~
ing f~~ to.d .~y as it w.as .to , . ~ h eir :. o~n . tirr\cs.. i ~C~?nli ~gf(' , ~~ ~
sha ll primarily
•
be looking at "
examples.
of their. spidtual ll1tel''':
,,:.1,11.' •
pq~~at,l on.' '
Ii
, .' . , (l H.~. II- ! . I'I ,; ' j "
A,t"llumber ·of passages in the writing~ .. of St. ,Ephl,crn
(died 373) provide us with excellent g uidance on hO\. Scripture
s hould be ' read, On the one hand he sees t he Scriptures
th emeselvq as possessing an ~n fathomab lc dc~th of I. ' hidden
power" (t hai. i s~ spiritua l ' m eaning; western ",vriters 'oJ'c;uld pro-
bably prefer io speak of di vine inspiration). On the othel'
hand, in ord er for th e Christian to be able i to draw " on these
h idden depths o f spiritual' mea ning:' he or she must rea d the Bible
wit h rt~le eye' of f~ith> th <l:t : ~s/ wit h an openness ' to the g.u idance
of the 'Holy Spirit;' lfor 'tl1is ' same Spirit wi ll the'n lead the reader
to dis~'~ver 'lhe .'power which lies : hidden' wit l~i ll the \\;ords of
.' .... 'J!
 il, 56 The Bible in the Syriac Tradition Biblical Interpreta\ion.... 57

the biblica l tex t. Thus, for the Bible to 'comt: to life' and to \Vc shou ld realize that, if hc had not put on .~hc n~me s of
b ecome spiritually m eaningfu l there is need for openness to, and such things, ' ,
co-operation with, the Spirit on the part of the reader '(or jt would not .havc been possible for. him
hearer) .of the Bible, for only th~n wBI the reade r become aware to speak with us humans:
of the spiritual truths hidden within scripture. . Thus St. !.I he ,:lrew clo~c to 1:lS , bYn~e.an~, 9f " vh;:lt j.tbc.lppg~. ~o us; ,
Ephrcm says in onc of his hymns, <fThe Scriptures are laid he clothed him~elf I in qur ~ang~ag,e/! S0 : ,th~~ t},le" j might'
out like a mirror, and he whose eye is'· Jucid sees within them .. clothe us .. ' I.,,:' ,i ' , .1 .
the mirror of Truth" (Hymns on F~it h 67:8) . ' . ,. ,. in his mode . of.Iife .., I;I:c ~skc.d for-our form (Philippians 2.:7)
and put this on; thcn, as a father with his chjldrcri/ .
St. Ephrcm says emphatically ,on a number of " occasions he spoke with our childish statc. l.j.
that it is wrong to read the Bible in a literal way, forthi. will ' , ' ': '; . :. • I .,,1,',
lead to all sorts of misconceptions. Thus, for example, in one It is om> m'c taphors that h~ put Qn"":though 'he-;d id not
of his hymns on Paradise (11:6) he says, litcrally do so! ' I . I • • 1 ,"" \rt. "

If someone concentrates his attc.ntion He thcn too.1.: thcm ofT -":"without actu~lly \ dofn'g':so: \;:
solely ' on the metaphors \'vhich arc used of God's majesty, . when wearing them; ~c \\:,as at the "samc ' t'i me ' st~:i'ppcd of
them' I • ' . I. •

he then abuses and misrcprcsents that majes~y

by means of those same meta phors hc p~ts one on whcn it is beneficial, I

with which God has clothed himself fOl" m an's own benefit; thc: n, st rips it off [0 exchange' it for anothcr: , I

such a person is ungrateful to God's grace The fact thac.lle strips: 00' and puts o~ all so rts of '~'et~phors
which has bent down its stature to the level of human tcJl~ ~I S that 1 the me~aphor doe,} ' not apply ' to hi~ true Being;
because that Being is hidden, " I' I' 1"\ I
childishness:
Eve n though God has nothing in common with humanit y h e has dcpicted it by means, of what is visible.
nevertheless he clothed himself in the likeness of humanity (Hymns Oil Failh 31:1-3)
in order to bring humanity to the likeness of himself. A passagc of Scripture .. is cap~ble of only onc correct- hjsto~
I·jt:a l interpretation at a time; · such a restriction, ' however; docs
,Ephrcm often speaks of God as 'clot hillg himsel f in names lIot apply to spiritual interpretation: in that case, the mo'r e lucid
and luminous the inner cyc of [elith is, lhe more spiritual intcr~
(?r metaphors)' in the Old Testament, a s , a . pr.e ludc to his
"clothing himself in the human bod y' at the Incarnation. But
prc~~tions it ,w ill 'be ' capable of discovering. ~' ~-9 'EpHrem points
we should not abuse God's cond eSt:e nsion in making himse lf
out, lt .,,:ould b.~ very l>oring if" passage of Scripture ' had only
known to humanit y in this way by taking these metaphors tlllC spll'ltual meariing; .,
literally:

Let us g ive thanks to God
who clothed himself in the nan.les of the body's variou..;
parts:
Scripture refcrs to his rears',
to tca ch us th at he listens to us;
it speaks of his reyes', to show that he sees us.
Tt was just the names of such things that he put on.
If therc only existed ; a single se nsc 'for thc ' words of S cri-
. pturc, then the· ·first' commentator who came alo'n g would
disco vcr it, and other hearcrs would · expcrience ncithcr
thc . labour of searching, nor the joy of discovcry. Rather,
each word of OUT Lord has its own form , and each form
' has its own mcmbers, and cach member has its own cha-
l ' acte z:. , And each individual person understand s according

j Althoug h in his true Being there is no wrath or regret,

yet he put on these names too, because of our weakness.
to h.i~ 1 capacity, and hc' intcrprets the passage as is grantcd
19lum. i. (Commentary on the Diatessaron 7.:22) . •
,1
 58 The Bible in the Syriac Tradition
EarlieI' in the Commentary on th e Diatcss:lron 51. Ephrcm Ill S
the following excellen t advice (in the first paragraph he addresses
Chris0: ' fluit Y "that is left over. "Vh~t you have la ken off with you
" , is your portion; what has been left behind can still beco me
"Vho is cap:1 hle o f compreitending th e extent of
what
is to be discovered in a 's ingle utterance of YOllrs?' For we
leave behind in it far m orc than we take away frnm it.,.
like thi rst y people drinking frcm ,a: fountain.
The facet s of God's word arc far more numcrflllS thall
the faces of th ose ,vho learn from it. God . depicted hi ::.
word with ma ny beauties, so that each of those who learn
from it can examine that aspect of it which he likes. And
," God has hidden within his word all sorts of treasures, S ft
that each of us can be enriched by it: from whatever aspect
he meditates on. For God's ",,'ord is the Tree Qr l.ile which
extends to YOll blessed fruits from every dircct ivn; .it is like
the R ock which a :!' str uck in the "Vilderlless, whic h became
~ spiritual drink for c\'cryune on all sides: 'They ate th e
food of the Spirit and lhe)" drank the d raft of th e Spirit'.
Anyone who encollnters Scripture shou ld not su ppoSe
that the sing le one of its ri ches that he has found is th e on l ~r
one to exist; . rather, he should realize that he himself is
only capable of discovering that one out of the m a ny
riches which exist in it.
Nor, b~ call se Scripture has enriched him", should ' tht:
reader impover.ish it. Rather, if the reader is incapable of
finding morc", let him acknowledg e Scripture's·mag'nitudc.
Rejo ice because YOll have found satisfa~tjon, 'and do "
not be grieved that there has been sOlI\ething 'left over by
you. A thirsty person rejoices because he has ,dtunk: he is
not grieved because he proved incapable ,of drinkin g the
fouI1tain dry. 'Let the fuuntain vanquish your thirst: YOllr
,thirst should not try to vanquish the fountain! If your thirst
comes 'to an end .while the fountain has not been 'diminished.
~hen YOLI can drink , again · whenevC'r' 'YOli ' arc' thirsty';
whereas, if. the , rollntail~ had , been drained dry once YOLI
had ~lad your fill ", your victory .over it would , have' proved
1 ,
,Biblical , lnte,pretation ,59
to be for , your ,own , ,~larm. G)v.c, ~~an~s .. for, whOl;t : you
, huve take n away) and do
no,t cotp.plain abou~ I;thc ,super-
'-, ' y'our, inheritance, (CQ.lllIDentary on the Diatessaron,.I: 18-19)
I. ' ::
" .
The type o f spiritual interpretation which is employed
m ost frequently by the Syriac ' fathers can best ' be ' d escribed as
typological or 'symbolic ' interpretation. Ttlis tkind of intcrp're..t
lation can already he found in t~e New Test~m,ent, where" for
example, St. Pauf speaks of Christ 'as 'the : 131ter" Ada m' '( I Co~
•• ' , " . ~ ., '" • 1-, I '.
15:45)_ Typology tS m fact a 'means of mdteatmg relatu')lishlps:
rela tionships between
,
the, Old_. Testament
I " _
and tqe •
New",
,"
between
""
th~ New T~~tam~ni ari d tI~e , Chui-~h ~ ,bet~veen the ' ma~~r~_~~ :v~rld
and ' the hea:venly world, petween JlJston cal events and. persons
" I ' ,
in Script,ul"e and their, ~ piritt.laI meaning. Typ'cs, 'lI?~" sy.p',bf)Js
l
serve as pointers: from the standpoiri t of subjecti ve human , pers-
pective, a type or symbo l can be seen a s me r:. ns of revealing so me
.aspcc,t of 'o.bjective divine' reaJilY , (Truth ,' in :Ephrcm's termino-
logy); alternately, from the standpoint of objective divine
pc.:rspcc live, a lype or symbol is a place in which some aspect
of di\'illc reality lies hidden. Althoug h the Greek word for type,
" typos", docs so metimes occur in Syriac, the l)prmaJ term used for
_ type Oli sy mbol is ~"raza" '" which properly means" mystery', but
w hich is usuall y' best tl'anslatcd in ' this context • as "symbol' ,
thoug h it should be stressed that 'symbol' has a. much stronger
meaning than the , one clirrent , in modern English, where a
SYl)ll1(lJ, is usuall y. sharply distinguished from the ' thing it symbo-
]jz~s .: 1 ,F<>< the Syriae , Fathers [he link bet,Jcen' sy mbol land 'the'
re;aJity. s)~mbolized ' is inti'm ate, for in the sYlllLol there resid'es the
Chidden power': of tI,le reality. " " ( ' :!
" ,I , ', , '
The verse John 19:34 is a passage which excellently illu-
strates the me~hanj cs", as it w ere,- of, typolog ical ' exegesis: The
P~s J).,itta, hiJ.s her:~: But one of the soldjer~ .struc~ him on ,his 'side
with a spear", aI;ld immediately there came' fort h blood and.
w~ter. WitI, the b.elp , of typology, the piercing ' of Christ's , side
on the Cro~& i,s. linke.cl ;b,acls.warrl.s to, the Gepesis ' nal'1"",tive of th e ,
falJ of Adam and his expulsion from Parad ise,. and forwards ' to
. '
th e 'sacramental life of the Chu;ch'; in other, wotds", the typoJo.,
,
 I/'
I,
60 The Bible in the Syriac Tradition Bib l ical Interpretation... 61
I
gical 'interpretation of this verse point.! to the true significance Such, in prosaic terms, is' ~hc bare skc:letal framework 'up~
of the crucifixion and its importance as the turning point in the on which the : typologicalinterpretation of John 19:34 func tions.
•
:I \vholc of sa lvation history. How d ocs it achieve· this? F'o r the skeleton to come to life, one nc'~ds to read some of the
;
passages where the Syriac Fathers have breathed lifc into these
! First, the links ,.,.ith the · Gc ne~i s nan :ativc a re pt'ovided by bare bones. (1;\ee Suggested Reading, ;at ,the end of the Course),
the following contrasted clements:
It is sj gnific~nt that much of the best sp ~ rilual intcrcpre-
'- the side of Christ the , Second Adam, and the rib J 01' side, or tation of the Bible a mong the Syriac Fathers is , t() be found in
the First Adam (Cen 2:21-2), whence Eve was extracted; poetry l'iJ.thel' than in pros·c. Thus tile poems of Ephrcm , Narsai
and J acob of Serugh will appeal' today a, far more creative in
_ the spear which pierced Christ, and the ficI'Y s\vord which
their spiritual intcrpretatio? of Scripture' th~n the ' many ' latc~
kept Adam out of Paradi,e (Cen 3:24).
prose commentaries which. survive. ", . ". '. !\
• ',1 I,' '!: .
The piercing of Christ's side with the ' spear can thus QC seen a s
.'"
removing the fiery sword which has hitherto kept Adam (hurna ..
nit y) out o f Para dise; in other wo rds, the crtlciri xion opens
up the posssbility for huma nity to re turn to th e origina l sta le or ~ ~
P- ::::£, P-
P'lra disc.
I
I, ,f
Secondly, links forward to the Church arc provided by: '.
I II
,'"

..
" \ •• " , I

- the blood , a symbol or the Eucha rist; II,. I,,; ;

~ th e \Vate,", a symbol of Baptism. "
J ~1oving Qn from hel'c a furtlter step, the Syriac ~ Fathel's speak of' , '\
"
j I' y.;
the Church (as the placc wherc the Sacramertts of Baptism and ,
. , ' U· :.' "i '
the Eucharist arc· found) coming' forth~ or being born J from ' the " " :1 \. ' .I 'f" II" . 1, •

side of' Christ. This in lurn provid~s a contrast to 'Eve, who was
J\ '. , '
'rhe desert \viil 'rejoice;
and flo\Vc,l's will bloom in the wilde l" nes ~~ ,

I
',born' from, the ,ide of the Fir,t Adam, ' The imagc of birthgiving ~: ,. " J
thcn allow, the introduction Qf another ,ct of relationships: the The desert will sing and 'sh,o ut for joy; ; .' o • .-

birth of. Eve from Adam and the hirth of the Church from Christ ., " kwlll 'be as beautiful a s the Leb.anon Mountaifl~ , ,

were both virgin birth, (as too was the birth of' Adam from the and a s fertile as the fields of Carmel a nd , Sharon,
I Earth) , and this ofcoursc introdu cc~ tl~ c virgin ·birth of Christ ~vcryone \vill see the Lord's splendOllt) I

I from Mary, her,elf the Second Eve.

,.''''c
\'.i Cc his greatness 'a nd PO\ver ... ~
: ;

i arc thus provided ' with an extremely . intricate web of:

typological relationships which help ' to show ho'w' every po~nt ii"l
!alvation histor y is interlinked, and ho\\I' we today arc ourselves
,,'
" i.,
:' I I

,.
.

;'
.., ~
I !

p,a rticipants in this histoqo thl"ough the sacraments of Bap{i,sm and

the Eucharist. The typological parallelism impl.i cd in this network
or interrelationships bet\Vec~ 'Mar~' and the Church a lso p,~o~ idc:,~ :, I ! ~ • '. ;
fruitful and ·suggestive marerial for lhcological meditation·..· . " 0 • \ •

I
j'l
 I"
I'
... '

. Biblica l Commen \ar i"s ..: 63

• ,T " • I II , :
SECTION V - Co mmentary on the PaulineI Epistles, fhi ~"s loo survives o nly•
I , ' ! ' . , ' ': '
i,l an Ar menia n. t r,a .l l~ '~tio;rl' . A c~,: i~u s fe atur~ . of t.l ~ i,s, f~,orn~~rttarYf
I, BIBLICAL ' COMMENT ARIES
I : • , I' I, ' is. Ephrcrn's inclusion of a non- canoni cal letter a ttributed to. ~auL
I , known as 3 Corinthi~ns~ rhi~. , Ie~~~r wa s e.y!dc~\! y " q~lf~' ~~de,ly:
Com'm cntar ics on the Bible' 'ca n take many forms. ' Th e r ca~ in th c earl y : Syriac Chu !,<;h, 1 Lut· later! fc,11 out· or~a YP\l ~ pt,
earlier Syria c co mmellt a ries a rc gc n (~ r a ll y on on,t pa rti cul a r boo k is d earl y not ge.r ~uinc).. .
at a time, whereas fro m the eighth and ninth centur y on wards it Thanks to Ephrem's enormous re~utation ; rril.ny works no t'
i' bec~me th e ' fa shion to 'pr~vid~ co mme nta ri es on the whole Bible.
I . . , ' : . . .. : ' . ' " . ' ' .
b y him came ' to be at.tr ibuted 'to hinl,'·' ·This applies tii f a lm()st
a ll . the commentaries on the IOld . Testament attr,ibutcd : ten hirrf
, ' The ear-ii,c st s ur:~ivj.l1 g. S yria c c o rtll:n c nt~rics arc those by
Ephrem (c, 306-3i3), apd it is quile likel), tbal lhey date from th e in the cig ht ~c nth-century edition ', o f his', works." t !There arc :'alsll ~
last ten years of hi s life.1 spent at Edcssa. The foll o,wil).g ar c Armenian , translations o f · O ld -T estam ent ' commenta ries : undcr :
generally agreed to be b y Eph rcm himself (th oug h in som e his name, . but th ese have not yet been critic'lIl y! studied; and '
cases it is possible th at his disc iples p1lblished th em in th eir so it is not ye t poss ible to say ' whether th ey preser ve a n y
present form ): ge nume mate ri a l fro rr, th e peri o f Eph rc~.
J:- - Commentar y 011 Ccnesi$ : a nd most .of E xo dus; this surv ives in
I: '
,;

S yriac in a uniqu e manuscript. The Commentary follows th e
1'1 order o f th e biblica l text , h ut onl y selected passages a rc comm-
j ented on. The early c hapters o f GC~le s i s receive much mor t.:
1 attention than the later o nes, and Ephrem sh ows g re a t iut cl'rs t
! in' the question of human frec will . There is ver y Ilittlc ty polo-
gical inter preta tio n; thi s contras ts with th e typological intcr pl'c-
tation given to m an y passag es fr om Ge nesis a nd Exodus in h is
,I h ymns. Throughout the commentar y many intriguing links wi th
I:ollowing- c h~.q no log ical. or,d cr, proba bly , the I. nex t , Syriac
commentaries to survive arc certain work s b, y J o hn of Apa mea,or
J o hn" ~he Solita ry: . Much ' un certa int y surrounds' this figur e and
thc ,works :U:ndcr his 'name, lwhic h include a 'c o~mcntary on E ccle- "
siastcs and onc Ion the Beatitudcs. Neither of these has bd: n yet'
puhlished (thougl i a n' .edition of . the forme~ I is pro mised us
immine nt}. , .Thesc(l are not comme ntaries in th e ' mod ern se n;c;
instead" J ohh uses . selec t passagcs·' 'in 'th'c' ~ bi blica l ttxt · as
s pring -Loards for tcachin g"o n thc ,' s'p iritua lli.fc . " . . ~.: I: f

I' J ewish exegetical tra ditions a re to b c fo~n,d ..

From the m.iddl~ o y tlrc fifth ce.n tur Yr on~l/ar~ S ~i Syria c
I - Commentary o n. the Diatessai'on·. This : survives complete in commcnt,a tors come . und er thc influc:nce df some of lhe · main,
, an early tra nslation into .'\IJmenian j in recent times ab~ \ll tw o - G rec~ commentators .of the late fourth and ,eady . fifth cenlur y.
I thirds of th e Syriac.' original ' have bcc n ' r ccov ered a nd ' publisllc d These Greek writers -; fall " into two m ain'; 'schools : of,- cxegesis,
f' (1963; the d.iscovery of'some m ore Jc ~ves ' of ' the, same 'm a nuscript gC l}craUy \ kn own ,!is th e Antiochene , and , ,the:,. Alcxa,.ndria n. ,; As
I was announced in ' 1987)~ T4c Commenta ry foHows ·the sequellce far ~s later Syr:;'iac , exc;geti.c al tra~itiori " . was .,con~et:n~d, the,
I of the Diatcssaron (and since the Syi'iac Diatcssaron is lost, the m os t impo rta nt r-c presentativc of tl'\e ,Antiochene , sc.1J,o.QJ· of ex~ ; "
II Commentary is an extremely important ,..·itncss to both its te xt
and structure); a s in the Genesis a nd Exodus Commenta ry,
.g csis was Theod ore of Mp psueslia (died 428), ' while for the '
Alcxandriall school it .was Gyri! of , A.1cxa nd,ria ,' 1 ,' " . I f'
Ephrem is selective in the passages upo n which he chooses to
\, comment, but th e co mmentary itself is muc h mor e the ological in -.
The
"
Antio~he'nc
• ';
sc ho,olI w~~
I "'" .H ,
'part'icularly
• \ .:
' 11.
i~tcresled
I 1' "
j
i'~ 'histo-I-
j. . _. '

I 1' character; furth er m orc many passages are meditati ve in charactcr . ric,al j~,tc rprf tat~~~, _a ~ d from fl,the', 'I?~~nt Jo'( ...,:i ~w ? ~l' .' m~d~r~, .
bi ~ li:c;a l sc~~?brship .".~h~s s~ho,ol.: ~as Vtc ; ~;l,18rc .l cfip,~!ll ~~ I.~~S~_
A
IiI
t

I - Commentary 0 11 Acts. This com par atively short work sur vives
only in an Armenian tra nslation.
~ rp r~acl~ ~ ' evcn . a'~ t~c ipa~il~g i~ " ~omc rFs ~,cs~s ~h ~11 O ~ H ~~lg~ ~ f
inod cl'n ' CJ:itics . . J R eprese ntatives of this a pproach ' often' a dapted
I

I II. ,
 61 The Bible in the Syriac Tradition
to the Bible te chniques which ha d been de veloped by sc hola r s
of pagall Greek literary texts. Man y ()f Theod ore's works were
translated iuto Syr iac in the course of the fifth cc nlury, probabl y
at th e famous Persian School in Edessa; it was through this
sc hool , and its S UCCCSW I- (from 489) at Nisibis, th a t the An~io~
chene exegetical tradition came to exert a pervasive influence
on m any S yriac writers. In th e C hurch of the East, where
Theodore was regarded as th e Exegete par cxcc llcl1cc, _ and
where Theodore's christulogy was co nsidered normative, it is
no surprise to fj~d his exegesis a s dominant too, But it is also
the case (hat Theodore and lhe Antiochcnc exegetical tradition
exerted a ' considerable influence' on writers of the Syrian
Orthodox: tradition like Jacob. of Serugh and even philoxcnus;
this happened for the simple reason that these m en had once
themselves been students at th e !' Persian School, and ' though
the y reacted against its t.heological te aching J the y nevertheless
remail1cd influenced h y its' tl"':l diti on o f biblical interpretation.
Since Theodore of .i\10psues ti a later lca rne under a cloud .
of disa ppl'oval in the G l'ce k Church, m ost of his writings ' have
been lost in Greek. Iviany ' of his works ' which , have " m a naged
to survive arc ' known only ' from their translation into Syriac;
:tmongst these is ' a long :! and important Commentary on ' St-
j ohn's Gospel: Quite lextensive portions of his Commentary
011 the Psalms is also ' available in Syriac.
In passing it should be noted that : a great many of John
Chrysostom's exegetical homilies "on different 'I:looks of the 'l!iblc
were 'tran slated into : Syriac at 'an i.ca'd y .datc; t'o' judgc" b)t th ~
number of m a nusc ripts which survive, th~se were ' widel y rea d.
Other works translated ' into ' Svria c were 'Athan'asius' Exposition
of the Psalms (in a long~r ·· anci ~ shorter' for';') and G;'egory of
Nyssa's famous Commentary ' on the· Song··lOftsqngs.
I"
. .. . !/ , ': :
The Alexandrian exegetical tradition VI.\S distinguished
froIl} . th~ Alltioc h~ ll~ b): i.t ~ \Yill~gness to, c n:pl~ y ~ lJegory as .a
m ethod of biblical interpretation (Theodore in particular ,was
strong ly opposed to the us~ of ~Ileg;'·ry) .' It would be a ·m is ta~e,
fu)wcvcr, to think that aU AI~xanprinc interpretation is allego.
rical: mu ch of it would best be de sc~jbcd as '(ypo)ogicaI J and .in
Biblical Commentari es 65
t hi s. I'l's pect it has much in common with its Antiot: hene C QUIl-
tcrparl. Alexandrine exeges is has left mu c h less of :11l impres-
sioll Oil subsequc nt Syri ac t ra di tion, even thoug h Synan Ortho-
d~x writers had ava ilab le in Syriae translat io n several of Cyril
o f Alexa ndria's Commentaries (his Commell tary on Luke, ill ' t~ ~
form of a seri es of homilies, survives o nl y in S yriac tran s l~ t~on ) .
, I ' .' • .:
The tw o great Syriac poets, Narsai (di ed c.500) and j acob
o f Scrug h (died 521) both sta nd in thc ~ntj oc h c n c c~egetica )
trad ition, eve n though J acob r ejected An tlOc hcn e chnstology.
M a ny of their ve rse homilies (Hmemre") are in effect co mmen·
taries on particular biblical passages; , both : poets, for example,
, of homilies o n Creation .. .
ha ve a series
, • , '.. I I . ' d " ." ":; . .
Philoxen~s
,of Mabbug ' (~ied ~23) . lias: I~f\. commentaries
o n t he P ro logue or St. jl).hl1, a nd o~ , M a th cw/, P:nd ; Lu~e \ (th.es~
two survive only in fragmt:lltary fo rm ). The commcntar y. on
th c Prologue of , j ohn ,is in theJorm of an extcnded t heolog ical
cxposi:ion.
J' "1 : ' Tl;~'! bl;~'r ch ' of the' Ea~tl . produ~ed a"~m.i.mbc:: 6rco~men- .
t;,~ tql:< , ~t~ t1~e '~ix,th~.· ,~~ntujy.J :· 6ut :·~t.~Ie; 'is. ',,~'n~wll~
of . ~Ilci~ , W91'.~
to d~y, '! One <;> f the m01"<; lnfluenhal of .... ~~lesle . cpll1 m.cl}tatOl ~
was Ahoh ' of Qatar (ill the Gulf) whose work ) 1; ~nown· only
'from ..qu,ota ti ons i',1 much . la tcr \~riters . , A~ong " .t!l~ ~c~.eJ~lt
.find s 0/
~yria c (~ n~ .o:~~~er) ..manunc npt~ a,~ ~t. ?ath lnn~ s, ~,ona;­
'stci' Y on Mount Sina i it h ...~ s ·, bce r~ r:ep01:t~ d t!:tat t.h ere l S <;til
o th er wise unkno~n ~ol~mentary o n" thc ' llible "Jj{ thb great 'Ea; t
.,~y:· i a n , t.I\<;.oJogi.an Bab~ i .{9 icd 6.2" . . r: .... .
" I."" TI~e ' chief luminary in the field ~ f · S yr i [\c biblical... ~xegesis
'i t~ t1~ scv~nth ce ntury was undo.u~Jtcdly the ' Syri~n Ortho~~~x
'sc holar jacob of Edessa (died 708). jacob,.Iike-inany West Synan
autl;ors of his time, knew Gre~k well; he , ~rso ' knew~a little
, H ebrew, which was exceptional ·for ', a Christian ", sc holar!of that
time ,. He· displays his knowle dge of Hebrew.. !n a long a nd lea~ne d
no te dtf th e Tetragramma ton, the Hebrew divine : n ame wnltcn -
Y H W H ' but re~d as Ad onay ('my Lord', for which .thc-Septua._
"gint h as KY~' ios "and 'the' Pes l.lit~a M a,rya, ~~th meanin~ t~ord' ~.
This particula r hote is attached to hls ' rcvlsed-tt'snslatlon_of ·the
H omilies of Scverus of Antioch, but he has a lso left.., a \yh01c
 66 T he Bib le in the Syriac Traditio n
series of sc holia a nd letters on particu lar biblical top ics in which
h e displays consid erab le critica l acumen. His most important
wo'rk of exegesis, h owever, is h is Com mentary o n the Si~ Days
of Creation (Hexacm eron). It h ad beco me a t rad ition by his
lime for co mmen taries on th e ope nin g of Ge nesis to be the
vehicle for a g rea t de a l o f scie ntif ic knowledge, ran ging from
.zoology to geogr?phy, Jacob's co mme ntary cer ta inl y lives up
to this lracii rion , an d it is a store house of learning on a ll sort s
i· o f topics. J <~co b h ad left th e wo rk unfi nish ed at his death,
and so it was left to his equa ll y learned di sc iple Geo rge. bishup
of th e Arab tribes (di ed 724) to co mplete it.
The naInes o f seve ra l East Syrian co mmentators (suc h
a s I-Ina na o f Ad iabene a nd Gabr iel uf Qatar) are known from
quo tat ions ill later writel-s, but it is 1101 until t he latc e ighth
and th c ninth ccn lUr y t ha t we ha ve SUl'vivi llg comme ntar ies _
From t ha t pe riod we have ~ number of important wo rk s:
- th e n oo k of Sch olia, by Theodore bar Koni (late eighth
ce ntury ); th is is in t he form of se ts o f questions and a nswers on
selec t topics in every boo k of the Pcsh itta Bible . (The idea
of a biblica l commenta ry in t he form o f a series of Questions
a nd Answe rs was ta ken over from Gree k writel-s !;tuc h as Thco4
doret). The Book of Sc holia co mes d own to us in two ,d ifferent
rece nsion s, b ot h of wh ic h have bee n publi shed in the Louvain
Corpus of Oriental Christia n Writers (C S CO).
A Commentary on t h e whole Bible aga in in t he for m o f
Questi ons a nd Answers, b y Isho'ba rnun J Catholiclls o f the
Church of the East from 823- 828. Only th e section o n the
P e nt ate uch has been published so far (by E . C. Cla rke, 1962).
- An a non ymous commentary on Genesis and Exodus (to
9:32) ; this ha s recelltly been puhlishe d by L . van R ompay ( 1986)
in th e CSCO .
An anonymo us co mmentar r on the Old a nd the New T es ta 4
ment; o nly th e section o n Ge nesis 1-1 7 ha s bee n published so far
(A. L eve ne, 195 1).
Ij ,t;,o
Bib lica l Co mm e ntar ies 67
C , -, mme lltary on the Old a nd New Testaments by I sh o'dad
01" ~lcr v (fl our ished c. 850) . The Com m e nt~ric s o n th e Old Testa-
m e nl have been published by C . va n den Eyndc in the C S '? 0
( 1950 - 8 1), a ll d th ose on th e New Testament b y "·l.lJ. G ibson
( 19 11 - 13).
All these w 0rks conta in a considerable a m ount o f mate ri a l
in common, an d they a ll serve as repositories for ea rli er ex ege 4
ti ca l trad iti on.
The chie f SYI-ian Orthodox co mme nt a tors of not from the
ninth century are J ohn of Da ra a nd , especi a ll y, ~vJ oshe ba r
Kepha, seve ral of whose commentari es on differ ent b ooks o f
th e O ld an d New T es taments survive. O nly th e Commentary
0 11 J ohn by l'vl osh e h as been publish ed in full so fa r.
I n th e first half of the eleventh ce ntur y the: Eas t Syrian
scho lar Abd a lla h ib n at- T ayy ib (d icd 1043 ) wrote a numb er of
biblical comme nta ries in Arabic, b ased la rge ly on th e ea rli e r
Sy d ac ' commentary tra di tio n. These were widel y read by Arabic-
speaking C hristia ns from all C hu rc hes, a nd their influence has
eve n reac hed t he Ethiopian co mmenta r y tr ad ition.
An exte nsive commenta ry on th e E ast Syri a n lecti on a ry,
called the Ga nnat Bussame (Gard e n of Delig hts), belongs to th e
carl v ,thirtc'e nth ccntur y. TJl is work prcsc l:vcs . ma ny' excerpts
fron~ ' ear lier co mmentators whose wo rks arc. ot h erwise ' lost. (An
edition by G . Reinink in the C sea is in plcparation). •
. A fittin g climax to the \ Vcst Syrian com me nt~r y traditio n
is ptl v idc d by the ccAw_s.!!.~Raz eu , or Storc hou~e of ~yste~ic s,
by the Syrian Orthodox polymat h G regory Abu I FaraJ, usua ll y
kn~wn as Bar Hebraeus (d ied 1286). This g reat work covers the
e ntire Syriac Bible. Only parts of the rtAw sar Raze" have so
far been publishe d (the most accessib le, with English trans la ti on,
cover Genesis to Sa muel (ivL SprengHng and 'IV. O . Graham,
193 1), a nd the Gospels (E. W. Carr,
, 1925).
 11 "he ,Use of th e Syr iac Bible 69,
II SECTfON VI
i,
1·i.'1 And Mar y says, "Vho a re ' you,. sir? . :,'
iII I THE USE OF THE SYRJAC BIBLE 1]1{
PREACHING
a nd w h a t is t h is t h a t you utte r?,
\OVh a t you a rc sa y ing is r e mo te fr om mc,
,! I

I.L
'"
and- wh a t it mea ns I h ave no idea.

~! . Th e Bible has a lways beell t he m 1in sta rti ng point for
tl preachin g in all C hristi a n tra diti o ns. H ere we sh a ll conce ntra te
o n som e features whi c h a rc c h aracte ristic of t he Syriac: t rad itioll
and which arc not fo u nd widely e lsewh e re .
The p lace of poe t ry has a lwil)/s beeH ve r y promillen t w ilh~
in Syri3c lite ratu re as a wh ole; it is t hus n ot sur prising to rind
that poetry plays an importa nt r ole in prea ching and in th e CX~
position of the Bible in th e Syri ac C hurc hes . T\vo areas a rc pani ..
c ul ady note worth y: t h e usc o f d ia logue poe ms, wi th biblical
c ha racte rs, i n o rd er to hi g hlig ht decisive mom ents withi n t h e
biblical nan a li vc; a nd t he usc of VCI'SC ho milies fi)l' [he pu rpose
o f r e telling biblica l e p isod es ill it d ra m :nic fa shi on , Both l h ese
may be see n a s excellen t ve hicles fO I" popula r catcc heticaL instruc ...
An gel The Father h as revea led to m e, a s I d o now to you ,
this 'm ys tery whi ch ,~s sh a red b e tween him and ,his Su n,
w h e n he sent m e to say
t hat fro m yo u h e w ill sh ine out ovc r thc wor lds.
,
I a m a rrai d , sir , to acccl?t you,
for whe n E ve m y mo th e r acce p ted th e serpcll t
w h o sp oke as h e r friend . '"
she was sl).ltch ed a W,ay fr o m h er form er g lory.
Huma n ex p e rie nce a nd th e di ctat es o( 'l'cason ' also pro vide' a
h asis for furth e r qu estionin g o n £v1al:y's pa rt:
~ l ary "'l' his meeting w ith you a nd yo ur p r esence h ere
a r c a ll ve ryJ inc, if o nl y the natu ra l orde r o f thin gs

II' ti~ n whi c h d eser ve to b e r ed vcd toda y. did n ot stir me to h ave d oubts at Iy u ur a r riva l
as to h'o'w t he re can b~ fruit in a virg injs womb. .
I: ,The di a log ue poe ms bc lo ll l! to a vc ry a ncien t litcl'ary ge nre
,

I t is onl y wh e n t h c a n gel
",' "

fi n~ lly' m e ntio ns th e H oly S piri t that

, '.
whic h can bc traced bac k a t least to th e second mille nnium B C . M,ar y fin a ll y accc p ts; "
In th'cir Syria c fo rm th es'c p oe m s consist or short stanzas whe re
th e two bib lica l ch a rac ters sp ea k in a lternati ng ve rses; th ere is.
alm os t always ' a short nar r a tiv e introducti? n, providing the
An gel ~I was sent from t h e Father to bring yo u this messagc,
that his love h as compelled him ,
I'
I
aud ience (the cong l-egalion ) with the biblica l se tting, a nd there . 1;0 th a t his Son should r eside in your womb,
is sometimes a ve ry brief conclu3ion (ofte n in the .form of a
d oxology)_ Thc p oe ms norma ll y take th e ro r~ o f ,!:n a rg'umen t
and over yo u th e ' H o ly : Spirit ~ylll r.c sid Fo
.I
I
be twecn the two biblical c ha racte rs, a nd in th e e nd o ne of the 'rvr ~ r y In that ca se, 0 angel, I will not a nswe r bac k: I

two spea ke rs wins OYer th e oth eL T h us, for exa mple, in th e
dialogu e be twe en the angel Gabrie l and th e Virgin M a ry (the
sce ne o f th e An n uncia tion, Luke I :26- 38), the Virg in is mindful
of £ \'e's ex p erience, and so quc3ti o ns the a ngel at fir st:
Th e a ngel a ddressed ' th e \ / irg in a nd said ,
Peace be w ith you, 0 m ot he r o f m y Lo rd ,
b lessed a re yo u ~ ch ild,
and blessed is th e J'rult th a t is within yo u .
if th e H o ly Spir it sh a ll com e to m e,
"----.;,-
am his maidserva nt, and he h as a uth~rf ty; "
le t it be to me in a ccord a n ce with your word.
T h ese d ialog ue p oe ms provide a very cffective mea ns o r
pjn~ po i nti ngm om e nts ·of dramat ic tension with in ,th e biblical
narr a tive. At eac h su c h dra m a tic point th e poe t (usu a lly a nony·
m ous) explo res t he in ner psych o logical te nsio lls a n d th oughts; in
th e p rocess of..d oi·n g so) ·h c ,.successfull Y brings out th.c importa nt

,.
..i' ~ ',"
 rhe Use o f th e ,Syriac Bib le 71
70 T he Bible in the Syriac Traditi o n
To this Mary replies :
und erl ying theological teachi ng of th e passage in qbcst ion . In
man y cases these poems deal wit h th e con flict between the head Now I sha ll pour out m y \~o rds
a n d th e h ea rt , between hum an reason and fa ith : we . h ave seen an d address my Son hidden within wo mb; my
a little o f this in th e di a logue between th e An gel and Mary, but he will reveal to you i .that I ,,~l,la ll h ave. no other
it is a lso vcry prominent in the di a h gues between Zechariah and c hildren , " ,ti ,.. I , I ,:,
the Angel, an el between' Joseph and ~Jl ary. Zechar ia h finds it and that I shall not be deprived of y,?u r co mpapy. ,l
impossible to believe the a ngel's message that his barre n an d
c~dcrl y wife will bear a son: he tells the angel tIt would be ,This is th e final verse ot the dial ogue, bu~ ill' th e fin a l 'na;rat ivc
I astonishin g if I were to belie ve yO ll in the m a ller o f this talc we I;c;:~' r that
.
ve
,
rifica ti on o'f the truth of M~
' , .'
I:Y'/ , \\Ior d s is ! p,r~'
,.! .
v~~

I which you have told me : a tr ee already dried up ca nnot possibl y

provide fruit' , In va in d ocs th e angel tell Zech aria h of th e Old
Testament preceden ts, such as Sarah 'giving bi rt h ' to I saac in her
dcd for,Joseph.)
" ':
,
' , "
. '

J oseph , slep t, and the a ngel a rrived , '.

,.1
, ' I'
,..
(i, ' I;, " ',;

I. old age ; Zec~h remains stubb ornly scepti cal: ' H owever much
you speak trying lOpcrsuade me;-your wo rd s still do not touch
'I ",
revc 2ling to him how the mystery , liad take l) place. '" '. .:
' , ' J , " I '
,. J oseph rose up early and knelt in worship befOle .Mary
! ,11' 1

Illy intcllct:t' . In ' Zec hariah' s ca.st: human reaso n proves the full of wo nd er, \vho ,had not lie d. '. I
J !. ,hI,;" I.' :,-;. )J (II.: ..... ,":'. 'I f ; d.(~~{ :!·'f~,\ .l~ .,.~I I ·:,l~i,: l tt;.1
victor ' ovcr fa ilh - with the result tha t ,Zecharia h was made
' un a ble' to speak until ' t'h e angel's words ~amc to ·pass,'. II'~ '# , I I TI~c ;rdialogue ·'po·e~ I bet\~~cii Mary ~'f1nd.) .:Jds~pi{: i.llu~i~~~es·t bi~
.' it i~ ~~rdy.. ·a'ftc~ t he ·'in:tellecti'.·lia·s\ giVen 'way' LoVthe ~ 1.rriprobable \
: . 'I i :I . ; ' ~ I II j I.
c1airt;s" of faith" tHat 'extcrn~l 'vc'?ificatiOliJifJp(ovidc;d ",(in .J~sC'pl:ls ,
~ase~('i:':"die,ld'r~a:my; J s!h~~i'~'g ' tl~~t\<~this' f~ith..i~ ' lnci~~'d' .tgrounoed ':~' ~
, ~t ( . • • ,I, > • I .
~ " 'J'In thc .case of J ose ph, on the ,ot her ha,n,d, fai.th eventually
• • "J . ,.,', • I

WillS thc day, . even though , external appearan~es -h' s

"

fiancee s
. "
in. rea lity:" " l~' il'l"'~':, j' :"<r~lft~" !lMfJf!;~ ll-:v.! ~ /t1:, ('l ~ i, :J,.-~r\{rf'''t' ·~j~ .'11
obvious pregnancy-make it very ha rd for him to be lieve in Ivl ary's \ J ',tt "f·.,!.- ',\1

. imp robable ' explanation, ,.as appears ncar the beginning of the J ,. Some, fift y/such dialogue Ipocms t survive fj~ nd ~p.c.vnajo\.ity, "
', a" la l ague:
""" ,, t' ' "' ." ll i~'·" ,t'j, I It
of. thcse 1involvc biblica l c h'ar3tcters. ' Bascd 'nn l'th c lOld .tTcs~ment
, .
~, " • i 1/,
wc )lliave: l Q airi ~ nd "J IAbel .:.:!(Gcnesis 4); ~ Ab raham '~' andfH',lsaac
, (Gene; ;s :22)~ dJo'seph ., and c, Potiphar' s ·jwife 'I(Genesis 139); , Jo.seph
,', ;~!,
Jose ph I am asto~nd~d at ! \vilat 'you say : and llcnj a min}la nd 'Job 'and his wife:' The ' dialogues witli::New '
how ca n I jisten to' your worels? T estament topics arc ', rather m orc nuhlcrousJ a nd include:
Virg ins simpl y do not get prcgnant Zecha ri a h and ti,e Angel, 'the Angel and M ary, J ose ph and
unlcss the y have intercourse or get m a.rri ed . Mary, Mary a nd the · 'lv! agi, 'J ohn the Baptist an d " Christ, ' John
the Bap tist a nd th e Crowd , . Christ an d ' the Pharisees, i Christ
and the Synagogue, the ' Sinful W om a n I all d Satan, the i two
1vl ary' s pl'ltie,ncc in the fact; of his angry di~be li e( eventua ll y, thi eves on the cross, the Cherub 'and the thi ef" (Luke 22:' 42-3),
towa rd s the en d of the long dial ogue. wins 'o v'er J osep h, a nd he Death and Satan (at the d esce nt of Christ into .sheol), ,an d Mary
ha Jf conce d es th at J\1a r y might be te lli ng th e t1'uth :
and the Gardene r (t he risen C hrist).

The oldest dialogue poem s arc b y none other than St.

J osep h There a r c two possibilities, and both disturb m c:
Ephrem (SOm 0il Death an d Satan); most of these poems, how·
if what you say is truc, 'it is most frightening for mc ,
but if it is untrue; that 'is a g reat ·grief.
H ow I wish r could escape from the two.
1
e ve r , arc ' a no y mou s~ though in t he East Syrian tra dition' tbey
h ave usually cen ascribed to N al'sa i, ' Proba bly m any of them
.. /
 I'! 72 The Bible in the Syriac Trad iti o n
i'i
I! w ill have bee n wr itte n in the fifth or sixth centuries~ [or this
was a period of g reat literary creativ ity . But later writers a lso
I· li\' cOlllinucd to use this fonn of di a log ue poetry to good effect.
I ,'
Syriac literature is extremely ri ch in ve rse homilies, and
man y of t hese a rc by the grea t pocts Eph rcm (died 373), Narsa i
(d ied about 500), a nd Jacob o f Serug h (d ied 52 1). A l ar,~c num-
ber of these homilies pro vid e sermons in verse on parlic:ui,a r . bi:-
blica l passages, explori ng th eir spiritu:11 meanin gs, m a king cre-
ative li se of typology. In th ese the r ead(;rs (o r heare rs) a re a l-
ways aware of the preacher hims !If stand ing between th em a nd
I")·
the biblical text, providing cxhonalions an d exp lanations . . 'There
is, how~ver, a lso a sma ller number of verse homilies were the
biblica l narrative is retold in dr~ m atic fa !O hion; in these th ere arc
1':
I
no homiletic asides. Thi s retelling of biblical narratives m ake s
amp le usc o f speeches by t he var ious hiblical characters involved ~
.some of th ese speeches ca n a lready be found, in very brief form,
ill th e bih lical text itself. But morc often th e poet has supplied
both th e occas ion as well as the wO I'ds; in so doing he is readin g-
betw een th e lines, as it W .; j·C. o f th e biblical text, a nd drawin g out
the dramatic potential lO Iw found there.
:'1
j; ~ O nce again, most of the nar rat ive poems o f this so rt a rc
( allonymous (t houg h thcy arc often wrongly attributed to Ep hr cm),
It seems likely l lH ~ th ey m os tly belong to t he fifth a nd sixth ccn-
IUries. Amo ng the su bj ects cove red we find t he followillg:
Abrah.lm and Sara h in Egy pt (Ge nesis 12)", Abra ham , Sarah ,
and Isa:!e (Ge nesis 22), Joseph and his brot hers (Ge nesis 37 - 48 ;
th e 1 0 n gc~' c1e of poems on this subj ect by the fifd1 cent ury poet·
Da lai is often wrongly ascribed to EphremL the prophet E lijah
and the widow of Sarepta ( I K ings 17), the proph et' Jon a h
(th is ,ilone is genu inely hy Ephrem ), IVlary a nd Joseph (making
usc of motifs in th e Proto-Gospel of James), a nd the sin fu I
woman who anointed the feet of Christ (Luke: 7: 36 - 50 an d
paralkls). ,.
T he two narrative poe ms retelling the episode of the sacr i-
fice of I saac arC of parti cular interest since th ey introduce th e
fi gure of Sarah , who is not mentioned a single time in the cou rse
o f th e biblica l ,text of Genesis ~2 . In retelling th e biblical Ilan'a~
rh e Use of t he Syriac Bib le .. , 73
li ve the poet seeks to explore t he silences of the actua]'t~x l of
the Bible, and to draw out ;,vhat could 'be implicit wi thin those
silences. What were Sarah's reactions when Abra ham took off
her young boy? Did Abraham tell her off God 's fearful COI11 -
mand? Preachers in the early Church w ere clearly intellsely
Concern ed wi th such questions, and they suggeste d a va rie ty of
possible · answers. Us ually they assume that she only let I saac
go because she was ' unaware ef what· Abraham had been in-
s tructed by God to d o. In one of the two Sy riac narrative
poe m s on the 'subj ect, however, we h~ve a quite d iffe rent approach :
Sarah is 'portrayed as having the sam e !' profound faith in
God' s u ltimate love as her husband Abra ha m has, for she is
both aware orwhat is to ha ppen and consents tei it. Indeed , as
it tu r ns out, her faith ' proves even greater than. Abraham's, for
she ' has' to endure the testing of her faith twice: when ' Abra-
ha m and Isaac return home to her, Abraham 'a t first· goes in
a lone, saying to I saac rI will spy out your mother's mind' :
.Sarah is · thus ' left . to imagine tha t · I saa'c ha's ' indeed . been
sacri ficed , and she wclconics her husband b';lck with these word s:
Welcome, blessed old mall, husband' who has loved God;
welcome; .happy o ne,: who has sacrificed on the pyre my
only child ; , I'
welcome, 0 slaugllterc l', who did ' not spare the body of
. my onl)· child.
Did he weep when he was bound, or groan when he died?
was ' he looking for 'me?
Abraham a'ss ures ' her that I saac did not cry when he was
b ou nd, and that ' when the ' knife was abo've his throat, he
remembered you there' ; . -to' this Sarah replies:
May the soul of my only child be accepted,
for . he listened to his mother's words. .
If only I were an cagle, or had the speed 'of a dove;
/ so that I might go _and -behold that place
w here my only child, .my . belov.e d, , vas sacrificed! '
On ly at t he end of thi s speech docs. I saac 'w a lk in; sa fe and
souIld , to fall into his mother's astounded embrace.
III 74 The Bible in the Syriac' Tradition The Usc of the Syriac Bible.,. 75

Il Although th e poet ha ndles the biblical nan'alive (Vilh a

good cleal of freedom, he docs 50 in orde r to impress 'on ~ hi s
to mcc t it' -and thc S:.Ull C tlliilg happened with ihc " oil. Tht,:
prophet, th e widow and her s~n are tl1U ~ assured , of ~oodJ an~
readers and hearers the underlying message inherent ,in the a ll gocs well for a whil~. But the c;lrough,t ~ti d t~~ ' famme CO~tl~
piblical text; ',this . he does" by. ~cans of.various dramatic effects HUC since Eljjah has not yet liftcd ' his ban } I Thmgs are' gettlO g ,
which ·he introduces intQ, the~' retelling of the ,biblical ',story. so bad th at God decides to.
resort ' to. son;ething " rri<?rc"" di'amatic
We $hould not, ofcourse, suppose that. he iS i\ tr yin'S to pro vide III order to gc~ Elijah to relent and show compassion:. ,01 j
a historicql reconstru ction of the episode :" this . would b~ to , . , 111 ,' •. • " :1 . ... d ~! · , J ./. :, ·t
mi sunde rst~n9 Jlis . intentions totall y and completely. " ~ He S~ llt an ange l totake' away I i\"; .Ill ' 'I' , , ~,
t he soul of th e widow's son. " ."
" The .. narrative : verse, ~omily on the prophet , Elijah pro~ Ht: look ' away' his lsouJ , al1d so i~citc d his hlcithcr ..• .
vides. another exa)Jlplc of the . way · in which the po~t seeks to to d o battl e Wit. h t le i ' h, t m~I~ :"111. ',?ffl
upng .In ")
:
}~cight~n . the dram'a lic force r of ~hc biblical n~tra\ive. : td , Kings, th e woman took hold of him 'and stood there, I.q ••
17: 1 ' tells . I~ow . ~I~c prophet ibound the skies ulld er an oath , not read y [0 argue with him as a rl:1Urdcrer: d r ' " .•" " ,·1
allowing them to let fall a ny rain or dew 'except by my word'. 'Give me back my : only child', she cried, '
The r es ulting . droug ht~ was to be a punishment for th e natio n' s ' fol' he was killed because of you. "
~\' icked ways . . L ater on in the chaptcr th e \ bibli.c al narrati ve tclls I will seize h oJd of you straight~hya'y :,,' . :'
~ ow thc same prophet rest:o rcd, life to thc de.ad so n oG the ,Wid ow . and thrown you into the 'hands " i .". ! I.·
at ~Sarepta (-I, Kings 1.7:22). ! Then; :"\t ' rhe· end of chapter 18, .we of Ahab and Jezebc:J, to ' me~,t . ari , evil 'fatt:'.
l~ar Ul pf the end, Ofilh~ terriblc drought. ,. In thc: :biblic~1 account Elijalt answere. d }~er an~ , said , . " r • . •' •
no dil'cct connection between the raising 'of the widow's son and , "I ', to thc~ wid (n," ! who,: h a d' spoken thesc ·t Iungs: : lh',,-· I I
the end of; the droug ht, is' m'ade, · but th'c author· of th e Syriac (Never h'as : anyo~e ,bee n kiBed b y' me, ' , • I.

verse. homily 01) Elijah ' docs link the · two in a, . vcry · drama tic wa y and he~e you arc ' oalling me a l,Durd.erer. ... ~" "

I· (in so d~ing, hc was in fact fo llowing J ewis h tradition) . \"' hen.

the heavens complain1lo ' God, about Elijah~s laction, God ,pdinls
Am I God to be able to revive your son?
Or is his s~ul in IH)' hands, " " , ';'~ '
i:I out to them th at he should respect his p rophctls,ta uthority, sl.~c in g . seeing that 'you' are requiring him at ~ m)' h ands,?' I
, ', J ," ,.

that, Elija.h had specificaBY'is.lated that tIl e' heilycn .w;erc , bound ,: ';." " : ..! ,jl ,:., . . , \ , . ! , " ' ,p.'

until he him~c lf release th cm . 'Be. pqt ient with, m c, for a littie • • .. ' , ,~ . I~.\ :~, ~ id , j .'111 . :::
The woman said 111 reply to EI1Jah, ,.1. '. ,',: ..
while', God tells "th e ' heavens, ' and wait until I go d own to ,v isit
. 'In?eed~ ,?y thf God wh,o m I ,~~r~e" . I ',':! ! !H';"'! li a .. '
}~!n~ I: ' r ill' go 011 proposing to h,im rcasons, ;uqtil . he . cv/!utual1)?- this ' j s assured for ~c: :" ., II . ' . , . . ','
u.e comcs re co n ~'iled with, you". ' Aftcr various f\t~empts to ge t,
" i~ .the floUl: hcarq you al}rl: , leapt up" ~ ~ .\ I ::1 ",Ii " 1 I

Elijah to lift his ban and . so end the .droug)tt. ;Gqd, finally se nds
' and if the oil hea~d you a.l)<i spurted .c0nl\".";! .,, .
him off to" widow of Sarepta who will feed him despite the
.~ ~I~~n the ,l :ord wip' lis~en to .y'o,u, thu~ 1 I '~ . 1' P," i,l:
t,)'

fa mine. She tells. him that all she has left "ver, is ,a lit.tle- flour ' arid will give you back the soul of ·the boy:: ...·: , .",.,1 ' · d'
in a bowl and a small quantit y. .0fOlI (I Kings t7:12), but the
propl.lct " l\s~u~c,s :hcr: • II
Then Elijah took the boy
N;ei the ' shall ' the bow'l of fl our '1
-..1\ ,,' ~d brought him to the upper room;
nor sha ll the horn of oil g i ~c . out ~ he knelt and bega n to say. :'.
in sorrow and in sufTcring:
'I~hc woman runs oIT ' to tryout the , word 'of thc ' prophet', and '0 Lord, I beg of you,
as ' she plunged her hand into th e bowl ,1 f1ollr, came leaping lip as a sc rvant I speak in your presence;
 ,"
il 76 The Bible in the Syriac Tradition "

I~'
,1 .
wh>,. L ord, ha \'c you repaid with such loss SECTION ' VII
. If this widow who has received me? >
Wh y did you send me to her, THE USE OF THE SYRIAC BIBLE
!li' why did you bring her son forth fro m her womb? IN :rHE LITURGY
II Lord, I call upon you with feeling ,
jll I bC'g of you mercy;
!I! li~tcn , L ord, to your servant's praye r:, . The , Syriac Bihle feotures in liturgical worship above all
'1 alld return the soul of this boy'. in the cycle of biblic~l readings and in the use of the' Psalms.
I·
I Here, howeve r, wt; shall consider another. aspect: : the way, in
1 Our Lord an swered and said to Elijah ; whi~h the phraseology , of the Syriac Bible . is ingrained , in the
! 'tOll owe me one debt: very prayers and hymns of the Syriac Churches. 'We shall look
repay it, and I .willlisten to YOli . at two examples, based on Genesis 1:2 and 'on Luke 1:35. . .",
I, I n your hands is p laced the ke y to the heavens,
i
in my hands is the soul of the child'. The second half of Genesis 1:2 reads in . the Peshilta
The holy man opened his mouth 'and the Spirit of God was hovering (lImrahhefa") over the
as his heart rejoic~d and exulted; su rfac;;c of the water'. The verb "tahhef" is · used in ncutel'o~
I"II" he released the heavens whil.:h he had bo!.md
- and the soul of the child returned.
llomy 32: 11 of a female bird hovering over her ' chicks, 'and the
noun u mrahfana'" 19 found several times' in the ' Peshitta as a

i: [n order to heigh te n I he dramatic effect ~f the biblica l

narrative the poet has . introduced the b C'ld id ea ' of a
parallel to ' umralu~ana", 'compassionate'. ' Modern English
trans lations usually provide two possible alternative , tran~lations

Ii
hargain struck between God and Elijah. This has the eIrect
of emphasizing the doul>le underl yjng Ilicssagc which the poeL
, '
sees in the biblical narrati ve : th e need for ' compassion on. the
part of those who arc zealou s for God 's righteousness, and Ih e
example of the wid ow's. f~\it h in God's ability to work miraclc!'
~;
through his prophet.
for Genesis 1:2, (the ·Spirit. of God' and 'wind ·or:God' (or,
'strong wind',), since "ruah" in Hebrew (and Hruha.~t . in 'Syriac)
can mean either · (spirit' or 'wind', This ' hesitation on .the part
'Or modcrn translators is in faCl nothing new, for the early Church
Fathers were also divided over how to interpret the verse: docs
it refer to the Holy Spirit, or to a spirit/wind? The fact that
the Greek has a passive vcrb follo)Villg ('was carried') suggested

I
(0 Some Greek commcntato~s that (the spi,rit' , her<; . cQ!1~d not
By,'etcliing thc' biblical 'n arrat ive in a lively and imagi~
i native way, these anonym ous SYl'iac poets have provjded n very
refer to the Holy Spirit.

I effective form of popular prcaching. The vcry r~c t that th ey

The ·Syriac Fathers -share this unce rtainty over the inter-
Ir take some Jibertles with the biblica l. text cncouragc~ thd,: readers
I , pretation of Genesis I :2, and many qf them, from St. Ephrcm
and hearers t9 go back to the biblical text and rc~djscovcr it
for thcmsc Ivcs.
onwards,· prefer not to introduce the .' Holy Spirit her~ in their
exegesis of .the passage. This line ofintcrpretation was adopted

! P< * P<
in order to avoid certai:\ theological misunderstandings associa~
te d with ,the vcrs~, . and it was follo\ycd by several later ' cOmm~
entators, and in particula)-....by . Theodore of tvlopsucstia, (rom
whom it was taken over by tht School of Edessa and by its
successor at , Nisibis, Accordingly, the vast majorit y of later
S}'ri~c co~mentaries, especially those III the East Syrian tradition ; .,
II!
II!
 78 The Bi b le in the Sy r iac Tradit io n The ~ of th e -Syr. Bible ' in liturgx 7.9,

take the view that th e ' spirit of God' 1I1 t he verse is n ot the
H oly Spirit.
- ••1 :. "
, 'j i call y does not take the 's pirit of God' to re fer t o the Holy , Spirit,
Neve rth eless, ~n spit.e: 9f.lhis .at~it!Jd~ o n the part of so m e
~h eo l?gian~J it seem s that i different understanding was d eeply
mgra mcd In th e liturgical tradition, for th ere we ca n find m any
passages wh er e Genesis 1:2 is understood 'as rcfcn:illg to the H oly
Spirit: ' This can be see n above a ll in prayers ~ ncl hymhs CQIlI1 -
a
cctcd':' with bapt.ism; h ere we often" find parallcJism drawn. ' bet-
ween the ' creative activity: uf the H oly Spirit ov er -the pdmor'd ia l
wate rs, on th e one' hand, and the : sa me cI'cative activity of the
I, Spirit aVCl' th e &aptismal wa ters, ' wh ere the b a ptized become a.
t h a nks to thc ll SC o f the vcrb Hrahhe'f'" in connecti o n with the-
ac ti vity of th e Spirit at baptis m , Thus St. Ephrem) who ' specifi:-
n evcr thcl es;i d oes use th e ve rb "rahhef" J ' hove r', with q:fere nce
t o baptism whcn we says ' The Holy I Spirit hovers over th e
st rca m s' (th at is, o{ thc ba ptismal 'wa ters) [Hymns on '/\{irginity
7:8] " Likew,;se, in ~o me texts'o[ the Syrian Orthodox· 'baptis m a:!
s erv.ice , thc deacon ,says , at , thc ', sanctifi cation o f ,~ the baptis ma l
watcr,. ; H~w fea rful is this :: hour wh e n .,the!" living'i and ';H6ly
, Spirit ' ~ l'cl~.~',; d own ,from the uppe~mo s t ' heights!,a'n d' P hovers','
and d,~e ll s ~ on ("the: water;l ' sanctifying d t, just.. 'as;,the :Joqian.'s.
, ,~ , I" " ,

streams !,wcre ' ~.~ nG tificd, [a,t lthe baptism ',oC',christ], . .. j h jt ~~ t !nl l
, • , \' , , '.', I ,
'new creation'. 1:'hlJ5 in olle of the Epiphany H)'lnns a ttributed , ",' I " ," . ~ " r; " • ,,' .. ' , , ( t'. , ,I, " 1/ 11 "~'
'1."It ,'I ,\.! "
to S, : 'Ephrem ' vc h a v e: Likewisc, ou tside rthe context of bapti s ~ and the ·,bap,tJ~ma~
litu rgYJ wc not infreq uentl y find th e Spirit dcscribed as 'hoy,ering',
At cr eati on th e Spirit h ove red over t h e wa t crs~
., where ' the ver b 'hover~ is derived fro m , th c Pes hitta" tcXt ' o f t

the y conceive d and gave birth to reptiles" fi sh 'and birds. Ge nesis' 1:2. Thus in .,l sevcral West Sy'rian Anaph oras " n9v#er~ I

The H oly Spirit. h as h ove red over th e bapt ism a l watel', is used as one of the ver bs d esc ribing the act,ivi ty of th s, llio1Yi
I.' ', a nd h as give n birth to eagles in sy mbo l, th a t is, to the vir- Spirit at th c Epiclesis. One such case' is the Syriac Ana phora
g ins and lead ers,. a sc ribed, to St. J ohn ,Chr y. ~,ostom .,(quite .dir[er~ '~\ JrolI!' \~?I Greek
, and to fishes in sy mbo l, that is, to th e ch as te a nti th e A nap hora ~lnd er I ~i s na,I?~) : ' , ,' : ' ' ' " " ,\ " ,

rv[ay yo u r Spirit ' ~' nd yo u r Power oversh a d o w tit is ,! holy

intercesso rs,
, " ' and ,to reptiles in' symbol, t ha.t is, to t h e cunning who hav e
' " become a~ a ltar a nd san~tify its ' offe ri ngs; and , may rFe: ~~sr a~d~
rest and reside over tqe, b ~~ad , and ' ma~ it b~~,?'lJ~ i ,o!,}c:
':' : simplea. d ov., (Ma tthc,Y 10:1 6): (H )' innson ' Epiphan)' 8:15) Body.:.. "

T he same id ea is also found in the IvIaronite baptism a l rit e, ill
th e course o f the long p ray er at the san ctifica ti on of the wa ter:
As the H oly Spirit hovered over the waters at th e establish-
ment of cl'ca tion, so ma y your H ely Spir it,' 0 L ord, h ove r
The wordillg of ,this particular : e piclcsis ' co nven iently in-
tr oduces us to tlie other biblical p ~ssage und er; consideration in'
this sectio n, for the "vcrb 'oversh a d ow' is' derived from ' 'Luke!
1: 3jJ :' "IJJe_Hol y -Spi.it-shall- come 'and ' the 'Rower 'o f the " M os t' ,
High sh a ll overshadow' ("nagg'<fn" ) you'. '" I' ,, ; , '

over this baptis ma~ wat cr which is ~ spiritual womb, a nd j ',' j ' " ,:' " ' , I.J"," if " " i t '''i '
m a y he rcst upon it and sanctify it and makc' it fruitfuJ ,'P h e S y ri~c verb uscd to ' translato the 9 re ek : wor:d ·herc ,fo ri
w ith the h eavc n ly Adam, i~ place of th e carthly Ad a m. 'pve r s h a d O, w'~ . is a very interesting o nc" f01:' it has 'a background
in Jewish ~raI!laic' l ,The ver b "aggen" occ u rs a ',~ numbe r o f
The pa ra llelism betwecn th e watcrs at creation a nd th e limes in the Jewish Ara m a ic translat ions of the Heb rew " Bible ,
baptismal water is richly sugges ti ve, but it is rarely b ro u ght out almost, a lways in the co ntext of God' s salvi fi e act ivi ty. The
in, a n e~pJi c it wa:y--pe,'haps as a result of the different :e xegesis . Syriac ' translators ,of the ' New, Testam'e n t evideiltl r i? herited the
o f GenesJs 1:2 w}lIc h dominated ,the ' Schools "of Edcssa N isibis. ter,m from , J ewish Aramaic, and used it in a. numbc r( o f 1different !
But 'very often we do find the - pa"al'lcl,' s m vcstrg
' . .J: II_r."_p,illcnt,
' - passagcs, including ,
Luk.e l: 3.5 , :.Among
' I
·the 'othe
'
r passages !where

t
 i ::
Ij ,
SO Tho Bible in tho Syriac Trodit io n
Th e ' use o f th e Syr. Bible in Liturgy 81

the transla tors, employed this verb c:aglScnH al'e John 1:14 (w hcroc
," . the Greek has (The Word dwelt, or ta bernacled , among us')
over thc eucharistic Orferings. In his Commentary on the Li-
turgy the Syrian Orthodo~ writer rvloshe' bar Kcpha says
I,':i and Acts 10:44 and 11 :15 ("here t he G :eek h ,. ; the Spirit feel
q upon ... ·). " Just a s th"Holy Spirit 'descended to the' womb ' of M ary
(as the angel ,said, 'for the · Holy Spirit. ,hall come ... ·) .
A3 wa~ the case with Genesis 1:2, ;'10 too with Luke 1: 35 and. made the body of God the Word from the nesh of
there' has ' been a dilTercnc:c of opinion -about its precise interpre- the Virgin, so too the Spirit descends on the bread
tation. Is 'the Power of the ~lost Hig h" the same as 'the Holy and wine on the 'altar a nd ' mak ~s them; into ' the Body
Spirit' carlier: in thc' verse, or is the Powcr 1tO 'l be)dcntified as and the ' B1oo d 'ofGod the Word ,vhich originated ' from
the divine 'Word? On the whole onc can say ch,a t East Syrian tIC · . ' J' "' . , .··r·
I V lrgul. ' .J . . '..," ' , . J
I "; II :'" ' ( If' I 1 . "-'
" .\ 1
. t; ~ r· t~ I . ~
exegetical tradition identified the Power as a synonym for t';-;- ;, I
The implications of this implicit parallelism between the
Holy Spirit, . while West Syrian tradition normally understood
Annunctation I a nd · tI~e I Eut:haris~t . are impqr~.ant. ·, At, $c~ Annull":"
'the Power of the Most High' to refer to the ,p re -existent " Tord;
sevcr~l ex~eptio'ns can,; h~cvcr, be -'fou~d ' to :this p~ttcrn of il1- - cjatio~ .lvlary's , williqg tco~operation .with J t~e~j Spir!!~:,! f,.e~.t;tltf.<:\·; ~~ .
lerpfetation illl,. both ' traditions. !! In the' casc o(th'c ! yV est Syrjal~; the hl,fth' ~fl'om . h~.r.,o~ q<?)d .thp ,t W?r~; 1 ~t., t ~c J: ~~y~~&.~~e~.~
tradition' it " is ' c lear that the Peshiua's use': of thc"\ ame verb, arc tv.'o !· dl,(rercllt ~asp",cc~s _of. tl~e /lactJvl:y. ; I of '. the.\ ~~I[l!~~t.\1¥f."
d'aggen'" at John '·1:11 h~s been influential, ; foJ' t here ·the W ord throllg h th.e CI~urch' s fmthf~l ~ ~o~op~ra~lOn,. With the . ~~'?~$~P.U·I~
• . " .
;i ' subject of the verb.
I
' . at the EPlclcS1S, the eucharlstJ c Olfcnngs · arc·, transfoWl~qi'an9.
becom e the Body and Blood of . Christ; secbndly, if those- wh~
,; '. " . ' ~ ,• ' . ' . . '. • • 'ff " , . . •. . J.·cccivc 1,Coml1}union t, imitate :1 Mary!s !w~l~ ~.ng "s:.o-operaliona, wit~
In view· of'this difference over -the intqrprctation of Luke the Holy Spirit;; they. to<'> , will ·give :birth (:spirit,!~lly., to·IGo!;1·t!,e .
Word . . ',Thus :the : eighth,~~~tlJrY'~ .East:L~yrla'" .~ystjcj Josepli .
I :35, one would expect to find n:minisccnccs 'of Luke :1:35, 'whc'rc "
th.e . , Holy. ' Spirit
. "
,is" " understood' to
.
be the . subject
,. , I
of thc
,
verb thc " ,Visionary l writes' 'hi a)fpray'cr~to be' •.J:-e cited 'befqre ~Cdmm.'"
rover~J:ta.~qw~,. ,only in, ~as t Syria n liturgical texts, and not in l
llniori ~ rlvlay! I receive y·ou;·JLord ;\ not intqn; the ' stom~-cli \:which
West Syrian . ones. This, howe ver, is not the case, and in fact
helongs to the body's limbs, but into the womb of 'my mind ,
we 'f ind many such rcminiscences in both liturg ical ~~'aditions,
so th at YOLI may be conceived there, as in th e womb of thc--
,. ..

,
V!rgiJ~' .
It is. particularly significant wherl reminhcencc;s of Luke
I :35 occur in! the· Epiclesis of the ·Eucharistic . I:iturgy. , , In the, Syriac liturgical texts , are full of,; such. biblica.! r,e ImIll,
East Syrian liturgical tradition this occurs in the .J=:ast Syrian ~cences, ,and the . theological .. ,richness of these texts , w~ll only
Anaphora of .T heodorc, where the ' invocation , opens ·with the become ' truly apparent when . these reminiscences and ag,-!sions>
words 'May the grace of the H o ly Spirit come upon . us and arc recogn ized. Sometimes these allusions refer to twording
upon this offering and reside in :l.nd overshadow this bread .. . ' wbich is found uniquely)n the Peshitta (this l applies .tq ,. som~
~ In ' \'\'est" Syria.n . Anaphoras . the use of .rovershado\v\ , in ·the epj-;. extent, l,·at ,· least; to ! the . two .-, :e~~mpJ~s._;q~o.t~d, .. abR~c; I ~t.' al~9
clesis " is esp~cially common, and thc .: :example: quoted i above, applies notably to the form o("th~ .San~ tusJ ,in tqe; Syriap ,Ji.t urgics,
, from ·the 'Anaphora of St. John Chrysoitom; ·... onlyone· out of, for the wording 'heaven and earth arc',' f~ll . of his '{praises" ,
many 'Anaphoras where rovershadow' is used at ·this, point~ "" 1 th\~·I P.Cshittaotextl
\(ra ther than: 'his "' glory')" ' is' : taken :..l· froID '· "of
'/' '. , : " '.~ < " .. ,f,. : J: , ~saiah ' 6:3). ·- Because Syriac ' liturgical prayers. r~d ;hymns.are ,so
·The use of the word rovershadow' 'in the epiclcsis ' dtJi. '. soaked in the phraseology of the ,syriac Bible, we can accordingly
berately draws ' attention to the important paralleHsm I between sec the 'importance of ; having translations" based' on the :j Pc:shitta
the activity of the Spirit over l'vIary and the activity of the Spi.r it for the purposes of liturgical readings from' the Bible. ', :
,. . I . , " /lJ ;: :~' : ,
,.

SEC TI O N VIn
THE PESHITTA AS THE ,BASIS FOR
SYRIAC SPIRITUALITY
The Pcshitta is th e so urce for a g reat m a n}' term s wh ich
were to becom e im por ta nt in th e histor y of Syriac spiritua li ty.
Before loo king a t a few of th ese in m ore de ta il, we ca n notke
the fo How ing in pass ing:
~ th e term " r ushma" or rmark' J is rllgula rl y used in Colrl y
S},riac litera ture [0 ; th: bapt isma l a nointing o n th e forehead (or,
by ex tensio n, it may a lso r efer to th e w ho le ba ptismal ri te ). Th e
so urce for th e ter m is the Pcshi tta tex t of Ezekiel 9:4_ w here t he
prophet Ezekie l has a v isio n o f th e sla ug hter of th ~ ' g Uill Y i n
j erusalem
,
; in this vision 'a m a n clothe d in jin en' , ev ide nt ly,
a n a ngelic being, I is told by God to pass th rough th e city o f
J eru sa lem a nd ' put a m u k " ru shma" on th e fore hea d s o f
th osc who g ,'oan i n torme nt ovcr a ll t he a bo mi na ti ons a nd evi l"
d oings th at a l'c' being perfor m ed in th e city ' . I n H eb rew th c'
wo rd for fma rk' here is ff taw" , t he lette r T 3 whose sha pc in
thc o ld H ebrew sCI'ipt was th at of a cross. At t he pl'c-bapti-
sma l a nointing th e pries t "a noints a cross on the forehead o f th t:
pcrson being ba p tized wi t h oB, w hi ch symbo lizcs (a m ong m :.l.nr
o th er things) prote cti o n against th e fo rces of ev il.
- "in E;as t Syria n wr iters like St. I saac o f N ineveh (7t h cen tur y)
conce pt of fpu re p raye r ' beco mes a very importan t one. T he
on,Iy biblical version wh ere th e actua l term f p ure p raye r' OCCurs
is th e Peshitta , a t ' I Ch ro nicles 16: 42: "These ho ly, m en (wh o
;:
'were .ministering befor e ' the Ark o f th e C ovena nt ) gave ' pra ise.
" 'not w it~ musica l instrum e nts of p raise 3 •• ' b ut· with a j oy ful m ou th
'and with pure and perfect p rayer' . '
. , .... . . , UI " . ; - ' "
- one.of t he centra l conce pts ' of Syria c spir itua li ty i ~ th e idea l of
,ffshafy ut ha," j .th e Syri ac ter m has no sing le E ng lish equi va le llt ,
put covers a: wh ole variet y of d ifferent : ideas, , such as 'lucid it v,
.luminosit y, purity, ,clari ty, sereni ty". In ) th e S yri ac .. , Ribi e
there a r e a number of ,impor ta nt pass,ages ' wh t r e , tl~e la dj c;cl.h.-:e
"sha fya" , 'clea r, lu mi no us etc., occu rs; i ll so m e of t hese th e
7
,
II
II
!
T he Deshi tta as th e Basis .fo r " " ,83
. • I •~ ' " $ J :> : "•
te r m is used to desc ribe a path or way, such a s I saia h . 26:7,
'St ra ig h t and clear ' ("shafya") is t he way o~ th e righteous'. l Bu t
the most important passage is Lu ke 8: 15, wh ere 'th e term ' is
associated with the 'hea rt : I ' The seed ' in' the good ' g round refers
to th ose '·wh o hea r' th e W ord with a hl m irlous ' :' (hs ha'fya';) L'.ahd
good hea r t' (t he G ree k h ~s 'fa n' exc~~l e n t "'a nd ' good p eatt' ).
Taking th is a s their starti ng point; la ter Syriac ' w riters ' rre~
q uen tly re fer. to th e ideal o(fts hafyut lebbit" , ' luir{inosity ~f hca~t':
. . ' : '. , ; . '; , ~ . " .,
- anoth er i mpor ta nt an d distincti ve term in th e histo ry of Sy ~
r iac .spi ritualit y is Hmsarrquta" ' self-empt ying'; this . is . used
both in th e sense of th e strip ping a way . of · exter nal posse,ssions,
a nd in a n interi or sense, ' th e self-em p tying of heart' , ' th e stripp -
ing away o f self-will in ord er to follow th e will ,?f- C hrist. ' : Such
'self-em ptying' is in fact a n imi ta ti on of C hrist's o wn' self-e mpty-
' ing, based o n Sl. Pa ul ' s lett er to th t: Philip pia ns 2:7, 'C hrist empt-
ie d (Hsarreq" ) hi msel f, taking th e for m of a ser va nt:
- ' Syr iac tra di tion m a kes gr eat use of the imagery ?f ~ l othin g
in expressing: many,. di ffe rent theolog~ car ideas: In p~ rt~cu~a r, t he
the m e o f th e 'robe, .o'r ga rment, ' of. ' glor y / pr<:~. i se.' is" commonly
used to describe th e wh ole cou rse of salva tion h isto ryl: in, ?ara di s ~
Ada m a nd ·Eve we r e cloth ed in th e ga rmen t of g lory before th eir
d isob edie nce to God 's comma nd. At t,he F a ll humanity ' lost
this gar me ll t, a np th e whole p urpose of tJle Inca rna tion was t o
m a ke it possib.le for hum l llit y to p u t on; o nce , aga in, this ga r-
m ent of g lory; to brIng this abou t, Go~ th e \V ord fput ,on . th ~
bod y' at t he inca rna tio n, a nd then, a t his Ba ptism in t he river
J ord a n, he places th e garm ent 'of glor y in the Jo r d an water,
re a'd y for the ind ivid ual christian' to ' put on a t his 'o r her bap-
tism in th e baptism a l wate r , I n this world the' bap tized possess
this garme nt of g lory in 'po tential, bu t it on~ y beco m es a reality
in the \vorld to come :""provide d they · have ' ~e pt ~h e' garine ni un'-
sullied b y sin in the present life, The 'image or the robe or' gar -
m en t of glor y thus ' links together all the m ain points' in salvation
hi stot y, a nd thus vivid ly brings. home the close re la tionship bc'~
tween the individual christia n tod ay' and these p ast '. e vents' in
sa lvation . history: 'Earliest S yriac ch r isti anity cvidently :took· th e
idea of A da m and E ve being cloth ed in pa ra dise with the robe
I
of g l,Dry from an early J ewish intel'pretati~n of ~e~~~is ,3:21 (the
i~~a;e Pesbi~~~, ~e~,~ , ': ~~~~~t : r.i"~;" j~~- ,
d ocs' nor oecur in the
 84 The Bib le in th e Syriac Trad it io n
though the Hebrew, Cree k and S)'riac texts there spc:lk or t~p r.
ments of skin' being provided for Adam a nd Eve, the J ew ish
.Aramaic translat ion, kn ow n as the T d rgum , interpre ts [hem ,H
'garments of honour/glory '; similarly, a famous Rab bi, Rabbi
!vIcir, is said to have ha d a Hebrew text which re ad 'gar ments
.of light H( 'o r )" J instead of (garments of skin tt( 'or)" ' . Accord.
jog to this in ter pretation these ga rments of glory or lig h t be.
longed to Adam a nd Eve " before " th e Fall WhCI'C ' l S accord-
ing to th e normal translat ion, 'gar men ts of skin' J ; hcv were
g iven to them "aftcr " the Fall (the Hebrew text could "be in-
terpreted either way, as far as the point in lime is co ncer ned ).
Although the Syriac translato rs of the Pcshitta did not introduce
this idca at Genesis 3:21, they do a llude to it in so me other
passages; thus at Psalm 8:6 th e Peshitta has 'you (God ) c reated
man a little less than th e angc ls; in honoU1: and g lo r y did
you tfclot hc" him' (t he Heb rcw anti [he Greek boLil have
rcrown him' , not 'clothe him') ' Likewise at Psalm 132 :1 6 the
~es hilta (bu t no t the Hebrew an d Gn.:e k) speaks o( 'glory' <l!i
" th e clothing of th e just. (n th e Peshitta New Tcstamt: nt the
I•
~ra n s la tors have int roduced thc idea o f the ~n ca l'nati OIl as 'P Utl-
,m g on th e body' ,at two places in the Letter to the H ebrcws:
at H ebrews 5:7 Christ is desc ri bed as 'being clothed in flcsh'
(th e Gree k has ' in the da ys o f h is n es h ~); and at Hebrews 10:5
'(where ' Psalm 40 is q uoted as a prophecy of Christ) t ltc SY" iac
has 'You clothcd me in a bod y' , whe r eas the Greek has 'YOli
prepared a body COI- me'_
- "~e have a lready secn the im portance o f t he term Hag-gen ,i
_(lJqscd cSp'e~i a ll y_ on Luke _ 1:35 and J ohn 1: I'f) in t he Syriae
litu rgica l tradiL ion . In so me later Syriac writers (notably St.
I saac of ~ in evc h ) the ter m al,'1O ' became: an impor tant one .for
.des.cl'ibing the , transror mi[~g ,action of the H o ly Spirit o n' the m·
Jcnor .: ra lttti· of thc hcal'.t~. ' . ;.' , ..
All these terms ' a rc based 'on so m e distin ctive i'ca turc to
'bc' found only 'in 'the S\' d ac Bible. 'There 'a l:e, of ·cou rse. man y
:oth<: .. ' biblic~I' tCrms '~ h icH nrc likewise ' charactcl"istic of Syri ,tc
'spiritua lity, but th e~e nre also 'to be found in the G reek and
H cbrc\v, as \vell 'a s in" th'e
Syriac Bible.
• 1 ~
'F urther inr~rmation ' o n t~ is subject can be (ound in th ~
Course on Syriac Sp irilli nli i: y . 00
AI'PEN[)!X: SOME SI\~·[PL E TRANSLATIONS FROM
THE SYR lAC BIBLE
r
I , The following passage, J ohn 6: I -12, ill ustra tes the l{clation-
ship betwee n the two O ld Syriac manusc ripts, S [Sinaiticus] and
C [Curcton ian L a nd the Peshitta [£1]. For much of the time th e),
arc nearly identical, but towards th e e nd, especially, there a re
places w here they differ. T he translation is deliberatel y very
li tera l; ( __ ) denotes wo rd s supplied for the sa ke of English idiom;
( .. ] denotes passages where S is illeg ible.
John 6: I SCI' After t hese things ou r Lord (Jesus CP) WC lll to
t he far sid e of t he lake (sea P) of Gali lee -o f Tiberias, 2 and
t here we n t after him a great crowed ( m any crowds P), for th ey
were seeing the signs w hich he was performing upon (all P) the
s ick. 3 And our Lo rd (Jesus CP) we nt up to the mount ai n, and
( here he \Vas sitting with his disciples.
4 S And t here was close at hand the Feast of Un leavcm·d
Bread of t he J ews.
4 C Anq ther,e was close at hand Pesakh) the Feast orthe J ews,
4 P Now there was close at hand, the Feast of Pasc ha of the
Jc'~s;
5 SC I' And our l.ord (.Jesus CP) lifted u p his eyes and saw "
great crow d (C many crowd s) th a t had com e to him . And
(S omi ts) he said to Philip, From w here sha ll we ' buy bread for
these people to cat (C so that these people m ay eat; P for these
t o cat)? 6 Now he as if testing him asked him (P Now this he
said , testing him); [or he himself knew' w hat he was going to do.
Philip said to him, Two hun dred denarii of bread is !Iot surf'ici·
c nt lor them, though th ey cal vcry littlc : (P th ough ca~h one take
very Iiltle). ' . _ ,_ -r
8 One of his disci ples said to hi m, whose name was Andre,~
(C P Andrew was his name), the b rot her of Simon ,Kcpha:, ,
9 5 On a boy thcre is here fivc loaves of barley a nd tWo fishes,
9 C ,There is a boy h~re who has on him fiyc ,loaves of barley ,
a nd two fi shes', " :
9 P There is here a boy who has on hi T. nv~ lo a v~s o f ba rle y
' and tw p fj shes, " ii I
S but for all til cse what w ill ~ h cy d~'~ ,.
ci") but w hat will these d o for a ll t hese?
 ~:
86 The Bible in t he Sy ria c Traditio n
J
"
l OS H e said to th e m, ~'I akc th e peop le rcclin~. N ow th en: was Appendix: Some Sample Tran slations .... 87
"
I
mu ch
10 C Jesus said, Co, make the peop le reclin e b y g roups. Now
th ere was mu c h
S loaves of ba rl ey and those two fishes. Now the me n who
10 P were eating of this brea d were five thousand.
Jesus sa id to th c m ~ Get a ll these t? recline. Now th e re
was mu ch C (pi'cc~s) of ba rle y bread, what w'as left over by 'those who
s ate .
g ra ss in th e place. H e sa id to Ihc':JlJ Co. . nuke th e people
recline on the ' P . by those who ate from the five (pieces of ) bread.
C grass ill th at place. Alld th e peop le ,"cclined , ia Ilumber
fi ve thousand . 2. Peter 3:9 - 21.
P grass in the place. And the men recl ined , in number fi ve
thousa nd. The Pcs hitta is quite o ften offers an interpretative transla-
II S tion in the Le tte rs of Paul, J a mes an d Peter. If one co mpares
And whe n th ey had 11I :~dc th em reclill e, then Jeslis too k
th ose five the ft)ll owing t rans la ti on fr om th e Peshitta with one of the
II C stand ar d English translations fro m the G ree k, onc will di scover
And J esus tonk those
a n umber o f 3mall differences .
II P And .Jes us lOl)k the
S (pieces o f) brea d and t he two fishp.s, a nd he raised his
[cye:] (, hea ve n cr l Pete r 3:9" For the reason w hy you h ave bee n callcd is in
C (pi eces of) hread, or9-c r that you may inherit the blessing . , 10 Therefore, who-
P bread, ever wi shes for life (or: salvation) and dc s ire~ to sec good times,
S a nd hl essed a nd divided fo r his disciples [ J he should g uard his tongue from evil, .and J~t.l1i s lips not uller
~ n y deceit. 11 L e t ~ him cross over fr p m , ~vil, . and d o w,h a t is
C and blessed a nd gave.:: to those w h ~ 'wer"c rcci il ling . And
I Ji.kcwise also . good: let him seck for p eace, a nd run after. it. . 12 For the eyes
i' . P and blessed a nd di vid ed to tllose \ v 11 0 were . rec I'11l1llg
. . oCthe Lord arc upon the ri ghteous: his cars arc (there) to h ear
. And likewise a lso ' ' . them . . But the Lord' s face is (also) up on .the. wicked. .1 3 Who
S [' '. 1 will d o evil to you if you arc zealous for what is , good ? 1t And
C "\lith th e fj sh, a s mu c h as they wallted. if you shou ld suffer . for the sake of justice, hlcssed are you; and
~ from the fi sh, as mu c h as they wa nted. h fvc no fear . fOI~ ,t~o.se who'y 'y (0, r~ight~n , ryO\,~, al~d .' dd.not be
i 12 SCP And wh<:n t!l ~y were satisfied, he said ' to his disciples, upset. 15 Instead, cry (holy' to the Lord qhrist in your, hearts)
I' Gather tJ~ c fragments so, that nothing (P les t ' a'n ythin g; and be prepared t o m a ke a d efe nce to all ' who require ' of you
C + at a li i perish. .. some word concerning the . h ope of your faith, 16 (doing so) in

II 13 S And they g<:,-thered the ,fragment s w hi ch we re lert over fro~l humility and in fear, h av ing a goed consclencc,.so : that th ose
them ' " .who speak against you , as if aga inst ~vickcd -people, may be
13 C And ' th ey ga th e red asliamcd . as people who ~bu se y~ur beautiful , yay of Hfe in' Christ.
,! 13 P And they gathered 17 'Fo;' it is ~en,efic~a l ,for yo~ th ~t, while pcrfo ming gO!ld wOI'ks,
S a nd th ey fjIled tw elve b::t.ske ts with what was left over fl'om you sh ould endure ' ev il , if this IS the will of God, rather than
those five . '. ' (that this should happen ) when. you perform evil. 18. For Christ
G a nd th ey fil1cd tw elve b.lSkcts of fJ:agmcnts ' from the fi ve ,top pnce died for a liI' sin s: a just perso n on beha lf of sinners, in
I J> and they fHl ed twelve bas kets of fragm ents whic,h ·. were left
over
o rder to I~ ~ ing you close to God. H e both qied. in th e body and
came to life in spirit. · 19 And he p reac h ed to the sou ls which
were held in Slu'o l, 20 th e ones which of o ld h a d not been obedi-
ent in, the cla ys of Noah, when God's patience gave orders that
 f8 Th e Bible in the Syriac Tradition

there should be th e Ark, in the hope of their repentance-but SYRIAC BIBLE "' " .,,:! ..
only eight so uls entered it and were saved in the water. 21 You
too in th at sa me manner (literally, type) arc alive (or: saved) ill Select Bibliography
I "
:I baptism-not washing your b ody of dirt, but acknow1edg ing God
i' w ith a pure conscience, and the re surrection of Jesus Christ who
A. EDITIONS
W;!S raised up to heave n. wh ere he is at the right hand of God;
(1) Entire Bible . (Pe'hitta)
:!Ild the .~ngcls , authorir ics and puwers have been subjected to .
him. G. Sionita (Paris Polyglot) (1645) I' ,
The expansion ill verse 20 is of particular interest, for the B. Walton (London Polyglot) ' (1657) ' , .
translator is clearly aware of the Jewish tradition (taken up by S. Lee (1823) > UBS (1979 apocrypha) +
Aphrahat and Ephrcm) that God provided a long time for the Vrmia edn (1852) > Joseph .de Kelayta; ·Trin. ,: Bible
hui lding of the Ark in order that everyone should have a chance
, Soc. 1913 .. : Ii; I :

Mosul edn (1887 /92; rp Beirut 195 1 [see: ~oste, "SeT"

to repent.
.J2l (194,6)59 , ..
FOR FURTHER READING
,I For the Pcshitta O ld Testament th ere is a good cncyclo~
(2) Old Testament
I I,
I, .

(a) ,
"PESHITTA"
.. " , ~,
!I p;. . cdia article by th e E stonian Syriac sch~lar A. Vool>us, in the
Lciden Pcshitta Project:
I Supplcmclllill'Y volume to the I mcrprctcr's Dictionary of the
Bible ( 1976),848-5+. A mQre up to date one is to be published "Sample edition" [Cant. Tob. IV ' EzraJ ' (J966j
before long in the An e hol' Dictionary of the Bible. In Frenc h "V.T. Syriace" ;
there is ~ m orc detailed article hy evan Pu yve lde in the Dict-
.,
1.I Gen.-Ex. (1977), IlL!' Isaiah (198'1)
iOl1llairc de la Bible .. Supplement VI ( 1960), under the heading-
1I.2 Jud.--:Sam. (1978) Il!.3 Ezekiel (1985)
'Ori e ntales, versions'. All t hese i\'rtic1es also cover the Syriac ,'-
II.3 Psalms (1980) IIIA- XTI Proph. Dan
New I Testament as well.
II.>!' Kings (1976) ·· IV.3 ApocBar, IV£(1973)
For th e various Syriac vers ions o f the New Tcst.;u;ncnt ..
II.5 Prov.Wis.Qoh.Cant.(1979) IV. 6 Odes; Ap?cr.
there ,is a good c hapter ,in n. ~I. ~vl etzgcr, ,Early ,Versions of the
New Testament (1977). ILia J ob (198~! 'i \ 1'1. :';' ' . . . !,~s~S~~\ T?~; ~ , P) Ezra
Othcr t critic~I.e ditions : .. · 1. ' ;,. ,.' . ' ..~ ~ !"I: •
A more detai led Select Bibliography for the Syriac Bible
is available at SEER!. Pentateuch ·(W. B~rn~s, i914) ' !' . 'i '1 1'1'

Psalms :(W. Barnes, 1904). ~, ' . ,..tl}

. IH '~"_ t \
FOI' trans lations of some of the Dialogue POCI11s ' mentioned Lamentations (B. Albrektson, 1963) " . I

in Section 6, sec S. Broc k, Sogiatha: Syriac Dialoguc · Hymns Wisdom ·of Solomon (j. -A: Emerton; ' 1959}·i
(The Syrian Churches Series XI, 1987; ed. Jacob .. Vcllian). " :~pocrypha (P. de Lagarde; :),861)

For passages illustrating the ' intcrprct~tion ' of John 19: 34

'.' I , • ,
"
(b) "SYRO-HEXAPLA"
(Section 5) set: S Brock, Studies in · Syriac Spirituality (Syrian
Churches Series 13, 1988; ' cd Jacob \Iellian), chapter 7. ' A. Ceriani, "Codex syro-hexaplinis;' .''';' ('1874) I •

. P. dc' Lagarde; " Bibliothecae Syriacae" ••• (1892):.

,. '. ,' W. BaaF." '''New Syro.hexaplaric Texts (1968) ,
000
90 The Bible in the Syriae Tradi ti on Billii~g~.ph~ 9'1 ,
"
- for new m s with Syro-hex. Pentate uch; see A. VnnlH ls. · (f) CHRIST IAN PALESTIN IAN "ARAMAIC ~
" T he Pentateuch of th e Syro-hexapl. ( 19 75). A. Lewis and !\1'. i Gibson~ '! uThe . P~l. 'Sy,:iac ''Lcctionar; .
(c) JACOB OF EDESSA of the Gospels" (1899)" '" :. ,J · .. L \'
sec W. Baars, in " VT" 18 (1 968) 54U·5'f. (for uther texts see list-now incomplete-in IF. Schulte
-- L exicon Syropa lestinu m " (I 903 ) j cp also C. Perrot,
t<

(d) CHR ISTIAN PALESTINIAN··ARAMAIC Un fragm"n t chr. -pal. ,decouvert ' a ' Khirbet Mird [Acts
10) , "RB" 70 (1 963 ) 506-55) .
i\,1. H. Gos hen-Gottstein, ti The Bible ii'l the Syro-Pales- • , t •

tinian Version," . I (1973). (4) Translations

· G. M . Lamsa (Philadelphia 1957; London ' 1961 )
(3) New Testament
J. Murdock ( NT; Boston/London 1851 ) :
(a) . ,DIATESSARON (Exc~ "pted text, from Ephrem's A. O liver (PSl ; Boston 1861) . .'
, Commentary) ,. ' . . , •. ' • • ' 'J. l
W. Norton (NT Epp.;. ., London
. . 1890) ' .
.,
I. Ortiz de Urbina, HVctus Evangcliu'm Syrol"um; Dia-
tc'ssaron Tatiani" (1967) cp R . :vIul·ray, · :(f·l-l ey~hl'op B. STUDIES , .: .,
Dournal 10 ('69) (1) " General Surveys" . OT & NT :' : j .t
J. Molitor, Latin tr. "oc" 1969~7 1. "
f .1.H . I~9spc r~" The presc~ltl -day ,state of; .res,cal;c h OLl the
(b) 10LD SYRIAC · Pcshilt a in "Stu dies ... dcdi ca tc~: _lp ·: f'I.:Yf 1 Obbink"
( Utn:cht, 1964).
F. C, Burkitt (1 90 4 ) - based on C , , '. . " , ' . . : . ' . : . :, -," i . . ','
. A. Lewis (1 9 10) - based on S. C . van Pu yvclrlc, . in "Diet. de la Bi~lc, Supplement"
I. O;iiz de Urbina (sec above, . (a) · VI (1960), 8 . -" ,
'). Kci'chcnstc:inc'r, Bl:ou. z.um a llsyr. · Ak tatcxl, CfBibl"
.,
A. Voobus. in HI ntcrprctor's Dictionary of the Bible,
' 45 (64) ".1 i' Suppl. Vo L" (1 976) 848 - 54 '- ' . !'I .. ' r
I "id ", "Del' altsy r. Pall illste xt" (CSCO 315, 1'9iO) A. Voobus, in "Ncw "Catholic , Encyclopedia"· . .2 (1 967 )
.' (' c) PESI:!ITTA ,.... "!' ., ' .J : >\-33 - 6 . -; (~: :' j
. .' .j ;:
'.' n. Alan,d & S: nJ:o~kJ~ ~~ I:H!!l,e~I.ogis~l~cl,~.~~lcl~~yk lope.dic
G os pels: Pusey a nd Gwilliam ( 190 I) t . ,':

whole NT: BFBS 1920 and reprints, often wi t h' Psalll11- ) 6 (1 980) 181-96 . : .. ' " 1 :"., :! .;-1: ,'ifni)
The Wa y Internationa l, 1 98~ .... ,
"
(2) Old Testament
~ 1 i . I"; '11 • I. '1
(d) PHILOXEN!A!:r .. ;, .:. '. ' : . : . W. Barnes, On the ~ inf1ucnce ' of "the' LX;X 'on the Pe.
Catholic' ' Epistles ('Pococke ' Epp.' ): J, Gwynn" "Rem- '1 " jTS" 2 .(1901) . . " ,', ': " ', ;. ,
, .
J. Bloch, "The 'influence of the Greek Bible
" . I.": :, !
on the Pc,
, ': 1' '/ '"
min ts of Later Sy"iac Versioits' '' ,(.1909) · :: .
" AjSL" 36 (1 919 /20) , . '
Apocalypse ('Crawforcl Apoc .:): J. Gwynn, ( 1897 ).
"id", The a uthorsh ip of the Pe. " AJSL" 35 (1 918 /9 )
(e) . HARKLEAN ';". I. Hid", Printed editions of the Pe OT, " A]SL" 37 (1 92011 )
J. Wliite ( 1778f.,2 vols; ' ;'n '. tide wrongly. ca lled 'Philox- S . .1'. Brock; Jewish traditions in Syriac sources, " JJ8"
iana' ): ' Apocal)'p.e:· Voabus ( 19.78),', Catho lic Epp, Aland · 30 ( 1979) , \1' -" ,\
 ., ,. )~i·' (7 " \1 ) ~ib},i,~.gI"p'~r., ?~'
92 The Bible in the Syriac Tradition ri.

(3) New Testament " .' / .. . :.,.,';iI .I I.• . 11. .

P. B. Dirksen and M. J . Mulder (edd .), "The Peshill"":
Hi ts early tex t and history" (Lcidcn 1988 ) . !\f . Bla ck, The Syr iac Versional' 'evidence; in cd. K.
Aland , " Die alten Ucbersetzungen des NT,. (1972)
J. A. Emerton, Unclean birds and the origin of the PC, " " , ' ':""~'" ". , i (
~. C. Burkitt, . uEa~ly ~astcrn Christi ~nity'~ :\ch~ II
uJSS" 7
1\.1. Goshen-Gottstein, Prolegomena to a critic:d ° B. M. Metzger, "The Early Versions of ' the NT" ·
edition of th e Pc, (CScr. Hicrosol". 8 (1 9G I) (1 977 ).

Hid", review of Voobus, "Pesch. und Targ". , in rrJSS" A. Voobus, ('Studies in. the history of thc Gospel text
6 (196 1) in" Syriac (1951) . .
des AT" (AI!t. Abh. I i: I ,
\:~1.
: L. Baefdi, "Die Peschitta id., " Early versions of the NT" (1954). ·
1927) oid. ' 'Syrioc Versions' in 'lOB' Supplem . Vol. (1976)
S. Isenberg, On the .Jewish Palestinian or ig!ns o f the S: P. 'BROCK, The resolution or
the, Phi/oxonlon/Horkleon
'\
,
Pe to the Pentateuch, "lBL" 90 (1971) problem', in :'Essoys in honour or
B.' M. 'Metzgh (1981)
'I .,
M. D. Koster, "The Peshitta of Exodus" (1 977), Part
I. C and VI.
c. TOOLS ·

,' E: Levinc, The Syriac version of Ocn 4, . (rVT" 26 InSS. "List of OT Peshitta Manuscripts" (Lciden 1961)
(1976 ) 70-8. J.T, Clemons, " An index of Sy.riac mss containing the
Epp . and Apocalypse;, (Studies and Documents 33, 1968)
Y. Maori, "The Pcshilta version of the Pent. (1 ~75J
J. 'Pcrlc~, "~'lelctemata Pcschitoni t.lna, (1859) carly editions: E. N estlc, "Syriac Grammar with biblio-
'- graphy. (pp. 17- 30 of ' Litteratura Syriaca ' ).
' .. . .J.
Pinkerton , Origin and car ly history of the Syriac
Pent. "JTS" 15 ' (1914). ' lexicon/concord ance: C. Schaaf, HLcx icon syria cum con-
.I. P.M. van der Ploeg, The Pc of the OT, "OCA" 18G
(1 970 ) /t
. '
cordantiale" . (Leidcn 1709) [NT only)

L ., Techcn , Syr.-hebr. Glossal' zu den Psalmen aach del'

A. Voobus, ({Pesch. und Targumim, des" Pentatcuchs" pc "ZAW" 17 (1897)
(1958) [Ex 15 and Dt32) .
R'Smend, CfGriech.-Syr.-Hebr. Index lour Weisheit
1'. Wcrnberg-· Miler. " (Pc. Pent: · : and th~ ' Targum.),
des" Jesus Siraeh (1907)
"Studia Theologica" , 15 (1961)
"!lid", Prolegomena to a recxarrlin"tio,\ o f the Pal. T g. w. Jenning.s, " Lc~icoll to the Syriac NT" (Pc) (1926 )
" fragment pubiishcd by P Kahle and the ir relationship to W. Strthmann, KorRordan z des syr. Kohcletbuches
./
'Ii the Pcshitta, "JSS" 7 (1962 ) ,
I (1973) (Pe and Syh)
(lid," , ' Some scribal and linguistic feature,s of the Genesis N. Sproengel", "Konkordanz zum syrischem rsa1ter"
,, par. of the oldest Pc m s (ll M Add 14425), -"lSS" 13
( 1976)
(1 968) •,

.-
94 The Bi b le in the Syr iac Tradit io n
M. :tvl. W inte r, ct A Conco rdance to the PcShitta v ersion
of Bcn Sira" (1 976)
\OV. Strothmanll ct alii, C< Konk ordanz zur sY l'isc he n Bibcl" .
"Die p;ophcicn" (1 984); "Del' Pentateuch" (1986 ).
Anon. uThe Concordance to th e Pcshilta Version of the
Aramaic NT" (1985) .
bibliography: C. :i\'l oss, "Catalogue of Syriac printed
boob a nd related literat ure in th e.13 M" (1962 ) [up to
1959]
S. p , Brock, Syria c Studies (1 960-1 9 70), " Pa role de
I' 6ricni" , 4 (1 973) 405 -1 0; ( 197 1-80) in ' ''Parolc de
I ' Oric nt" I .0 (1 98 112) , 306 ":'14 .
id, C . T. Fritsch & S . Jellicoc, "A C lassified Biblio-
graphy of the SeptuaJ>int" (1 973 ), 189- 94. [01' books
trn nsl froUt Gree k: i c Ap oc rypha, S yh, Jac. Ed. and CPA]
. . : '
', ..'
..
"
QUESTIONS
(The answ ors should be brief and to the point . They should
re ach The Director. S, C. C. late st by 31st of March, 1989.)
" Vi rtua ll y all carly biblical translat ions arc basica ll y text·
ori ented, ratlle r tha n rca dcr· o riCp. 1Cd" . Explai n.
2 \Vh at are the consequences of the distinction between sc rip~
tural authentic ity an d literary authen ti city, which have affcc ...
ted the translations of the Dible?
3 ''''rite short notcs on:
I. Pcshina 2. Diate s~mron 3. Early Sy l'iac Commentaries
the Bible 4. Biblica l In ter pretat ion in th e.: Syriac Tradi-
0 11
ti on.
4 BI'icfly describe some o f th e mo st importa nt featu res eharac·
tt.r istic of the Syriae tradition in the use of the Striae Bible
for pre~\ehing.
5 Show how the phraseology of the Syriac Biblr. is ingrained in
the praye ~·s and hymns o f the SYl'i:lC Liturg ics.
6 Bring alit the relat io n between Syriac Spi l'itualit y al~ d
Pcshitta.
000