The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1893-06-09
THE NEW SINAI GosPEI,s.

The edited text of our Greek New
Testament rests mainly on four great
manuscript, or codices, as they are
called,-the Vaticanus of the fourth GEN.
fury, now in the pope's palace; the Alex
andrinus of the fifth, now carefully pre-
served in the British museum; the Sim
aiticus, won by Tischendorf, not with
out guile, from the monks in the convent
of Mount Sinai; and the COdex BeZae. in
the University library at Cambridge.
These are all clearly written, the chief
difficulty in deciphering them being that
the writing, like that of most ancient
Greek manuscripts, is in capital letters,
called uncials, without division of the
letters into words, and without punctua-
ton. Other difficulties are caused by
the finger of Time. Sometimes a hole
exists where an important word might
be looked for; sometimes the writing is
so faded that the keenest eye can hardly
decipher it: and sometimes pages have
stuck so close together that the upper
surface of the one has been transferred
to the other when they were separated.
But we are deeply thankful that it has
been possible for British and American
scholars, with the help of these and
other codices, to adopt text which rep
resenTs the word of God, in all its main
essentials, very nearly as it was first
penned under the guidance of the Holy
Spirit.
Since the revised version of the Bible
was given to the world, II years ago, it
is now no secret that in many minor
points these great codices differ. Their
variations seldom affect any serious doc
trine; they merely represent different
choice of words to express the same
thing, and are due to the idiosyncrasies
of early scribes. To us they afford wit
ness that the immediate followers of our
Lord had no slavish veneration for mere
words,-that his teaching, as by them re-
ported when fresh in their memories,
has been transmitted to us more faithful
ly than if learned rabbits had watched
over its every jot and little.
Now. when Greek goddess vary, where
can we look for an umpireP Naturally,
to the ancient codices, in those langua res
into which the gospel was first trans
lated. And here the language which
was spoken in the humble worship of
Nazareth, the language in which our
Lord restored dead girl to life, and in
which his despairing cry was uttered
from the cross, the Syriac, or Aramaic,
becomes of first Importance.
Early Syriac versions of the New Tes-
lament fall naturally into two divisions,
the common one, or Peshito, univer-
sally adopted by the Syriac churches
after the fourth century; and the more
ancient one, named the Curetonian,
from William Cureton, who discovered
the only known copy, in 1912, amongst
some manuscripts brought from the
Nitrian desert to the British museum.
Toni ~ . ln r
these two, is the more highly valued.
But it is imperfect, containing portions
only of Matthew, of Luke, and of John,
whilst of Mark all but the last four
verses had disappeared before Cureton
found it.
Scholars have heretofore often ex
pressed hope that the Curetonian YER
sion might some day be supplemented
by the discovery of another manuscript.
For this, Eastern mOnasteries have till
now been vainly searched; and the pres
ent writer believes that she can distinct
ly trace the finger of Providence in the
way that she and her twin sister, Mrs.
James G. Gibson, were led, in the spring
of last year, to place their hands on an
almost complete copy of these early
Syriac gospels.
We had often thought of visiting
Mount sinai; for the warm welcome ex-
tended to us in other Greek monasteries
had awakened the hope that our COM
mand of colloquial Greek might be the
key to the doors which have baffled the
efforts of former European travellers.
But family circumstances prevented our
CARRYING out our purposes till the spring
of 1892; and our thoughts were turned
in the direction of the Syrial library
through the publication in 1891, by Mr..
Rendel Harris, of the Apology of Aris-
tides, which he had recently discovered
there.
The Syriac language, to one who has
already mastered Arabic and Hebrew, is
not very difficult; but a new source of
power was unexpectedly placed in our
hands by Mr.. Harris himself, who in
sisted on teaching us photography. Nov
ember skies are not, however, in Eng
land, very favorable to this art; and we
had only half learned our lesson when
our kind instructor received a commits
sion from tho University of Cambridge
to visit other Eastern monasteries i'll
search of manuscripts. 1t thus came to
pass that we had taken only one respect
able picture before we started, on the 7th
of January, with over thousand East
man films and manuscript stand, de-
signed by Mr.. Harris to obviate the diff
fculties which he himself met with.
We were received by the monks with
great cordially, which ripened into a
sincere friendship with some of them
during our stay. Amongst the Syriac
books which they showed US, soon
picked out volume of hundred and
seventy-eight leaves, nearly all glued to-
gether with some greasy substance. 1
separated them, partly with my fingers
and partly with the steam of a kettle.
They had the more fascination for me
that no human eye had evidently looked
on them for centuries; and / soon per-
ceived that it was a palimpsest, whose
upper Tor later) writing contained the
stories of women saints, whilst the un-
der or earlier one was for the four gos-
pels, as | knew from many pages being
headed "Evangelion, :" "Matthi," "Mar-
GUS" or 'Luca." could also read de-
tached words or lines where they ap-
peared on the margins. l therefore at
once determined to photograph the
whole of this palimpsest.
Space fails me to relate all the difficult
ties we surmOunted. The manuscript
stand was excellent, but its screws
would not fit, and it had to be tied to-
gether with cords; and there was radi-
cal defect in our two Eastman boxes,
which caused them to tear up the films,
and so clog their OWE machinery. Be-
sides this, my sister, who seconded me