The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-07-07
CUREToN ON THE SYRIAC GOSPELS
From the London Times.

Modern scholars are not blest with many
great literary windfalls, bnt such windfus as
we do obtain come from that tree of knowledge
which grows in the East. The classical Ian
guages have been sucked dry. There is little
new to be derived from them. 1t is in the
Oriental languages that the grand discoveries
of our time are being made. Now we hear of
arrowhead inscriptions being read, and now of
singular hieroglyphics being deciphered; now
we resuscitate the Assyrian past, and now we
make resurrection among the Egyptian tombs.
And not the least among the discoveries which
the study of Oriental learning has produced,
deserves to be reckoned the volume of which
we are now going to give some account, and
for which we are indebted to the Rev. DR..
Cureton.
The time has not yet come at which we can
fully estimate the value of what the learned
Rector of St. Margaret's has been able to place
before the scholars of this and other countries
He is himself content simply to publish the
MSS. which he has discovered, and to state all
the facts regarding them, reserving his opinions
to some future opportunity. The biblical crit
les will carefully examine all that Is here ad
vanced, and soon let us know what Is It's pre-
else bearing on the canon of Scripture Mean
while we must bear our testimony to the great
labor and learning which are conspicuous
hitherto been more appreciated on the continent
than in this country. We must also add that
whatever be the net result of DR.. Cureton's dis
covery after it has passed through the crucible
of criticism, it must always be of surprising in
terest to every earnest student of the sacred
Scriptures.
The manuscript from which the present text
has been printed was obtained in the year 1912,
by Archdeacon Tattam, from the Syrian mon
astery dedicated to ST. Mary Deipara, or
Mother of God, in the valley of the Natron
Lakes. Bound together, so as to form vol
ume of the Four Gospels, it consisted of three
ancient copies, rather confusedly arranged.
with few leaves added in a more recent hand
to make up the DEFICIENCIES. The volume ends
with request that the reader will pray for the
soul of the sinner who transcribed these addi-
tons, and with statement to the effect that
the whole was put together in the year of the
Greeks 1893, which is equivalent to the year
l22l Of the Christian era. The volume thus
arranged and bound was soon found to consist
OF several manuscripts selected almost at haz-
ard, and pierced together chiefly by considera-
ton of size, so as to form a complete COPY of
the -Four Gospels. Several other volumes from
the same library were made up in precisely
similar fashion. The person who arranged
them seems to have had no idea of collecting
volume
which had fallen to pieces, but merely to have
taken the first leaves that came to his hand.
mixing in the most absurd ways parts of three
or four manuscripts with parts of three or four
others, written at different times and by differ
ent scribes. In reminding the volumes after
they had been deposited in the British Museum,
this injury has, of course, been repaired and
the work which, has now been printed, consists
of eightytwo leaves and half belonging to
the original manuscript, and five others added
as it would seem, when, in the year 1921, the
Syrian monks INDUCED in their curious style of
bookbinding. These eighty-two leaves are of
large quarto, written in bold hand in two col
umns, and the learned editor who now pub
fishes an English translation, as we'll as the
Syriac original, suggests that they were trans
cribed about the middle of the fifth century.
When the volume first came into his hands
he says that he laid it aside among the other
earliest manuscripts of the Gospels, without fur
Their examination, concluding that it could not
be other than an early copy of the Peshito. the
Peshito version of the SyFiac Gospels bearing
in every part very strong evidence of transla,
ton from the Greek. On subsequently, looking
at the volume, however, DIR. Cureton was struck
by observing several erasures in the Gospel of
st. Matthew, and, on examining the matter more
closely, it appeared that the corrections supplied
were taken from the Peshito, and that the pas.
sages erased, therefore, were passages in which
this Syriac version differed from the Peshito. A
little further examination showed that the text
of this Gospel according to st. Matthew, as in
deed of ali the Gospels, is very different from
that of the Peshito. Here, in short, is Syriac
version of the Gospel hitherto quite unknown
in Europe.
Many persons will wonder what there can be
in the least remarkable about this, and, as far
as the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and John, are
concerned, perhaps the discovery is of no great
Importance The great importance of the dis
Remains OF very ancient Recension of the -Four
Gospel: IN Syria, hitherto unknown in Europe Discov-
cred, edit d. and translated, by William Cufeon ID ID,
F 8, Rector of 81 MsrgareIs and Canon of wsstrin
steI. LONDON: John Murray