TEMPLE-KEEPER TEMPTATION O F JESUS
TEMPLE-KEEPER ( NEWKOPON), Acts 1 9 35 AVrng.
KV. See NEOCOROS.
TEMPTATION. The word ,-len,
mussah (6n s i p -
~ C M O Calways), occurs in the O T not only as a place-
name (see MASSAH). in Ex. 1 7 7 etc. Ps.958 (AV
' temptation,' RV ' Mrassah,' RV"'g. ' temptation '), but
also as a common noun in Dt. 4 34 7 19 29 2 [3] where EV
has ' temptations ' and RVm@ ' trials ' or ' evidences,' in
Job9 23[see@]where 13V has ' trial'and RVmS 'calamity.'
T h e verb is m?. AV renders inconsistently ; in Ex. 1 7 2 7
Dt. 616 etc., it gives up the best rendering--i.e., 'to
prove '-and substitutes what to modern readers is
certainly misleading--' to tempt.' As Driver (on Dt.
616) well observes, ' m! is a neutral word, and means
to tat or prove a person, to see whether he will act in'a
particnlar way (Ex. 1 6 4 Judg. 222 34). or whether the
character he has is well established ( I K. 1 0 1 ) . God
thiisproves a person, or puts him to the test, to see if
his fidelity or affection is sincere, Gen. 221 Ex. 2020 Dt.
82 [g.v.] 134 [3] ; CFI Ps. 262 ; and men test, or prove
Jehovah when they act as if doubting whether his promise
be true, or ahether he is faithful to his revealed char-
acter, Ex. 1 7 2 7 Nu. 1422 Ps. 78 18 (see v. 19) 41 56 959
10614; cp Is. 712. So mass8th Dt. 434 719 292[3], are
not " temptations," but trials, provings (see note on
434).' With regard to the N T , it is satisfactory that
serpdo is rendered ' t r y ' in Heb. 1117 Rev. 2210, and
re+ ' trial' in H e b 1136. On the use of serpaupL6s
('temptation,' but RVmg.sometimes ' trial'),l Holtzmann
( H C 145f: ) remarks that this is one of the expressions
to which the N T has given a pregnant and almost new
meaning, indicating the external conflicts and distresses
which become the means of inward temptation ; see
Lk. 2228 Acts 1019 Jas. 1 2 I Pet. 16. Such a conflict,
such a distress is reported to have been the lot of Jesus,
a t the beginning of his ministry. See below.
TEMPTATION OF JESUS
Three stories ($0 1-4). Discussion (58 9-1s).
Contents ofthe tradition '($53). Possiblelight frommyths(B 12).
Nucleus (8 7). Specially parallel stories (5 13).
Possible light from Persia (5 8). Mythic elements, etc. (B 14).
Bibliography (fi 15).
[There are three chief modes of procedure in dealing
with the traditional story of the Temptations, or rather
Trials, of Jesus. ( I ) The narrative may be regarded as
having arisen in consequence of a kind of natural law or
tendency which, in the case of one who has won the
crown of moral perfection for himself and for his
disciples, places a symbolic event summing up the trials
and achievement of his life a t the very outset of his
career, just as the final victory of good over evil needs,
through the operation of the same law, to be effectually
guaranteed by a reported initial victory of the Light-god
over the Dragon of Chaos. This may lead us to begin
our consideration of the story of the Trials of Jesus by
putting the story side by side with similar stories of other
spiritual heroes known to tradition, and to put our
literary criticism of the narratives under the control of
results already obtained by such a comparison. Thus
the literary criticisni of the narrative will become
subordinate to the historical ( . e l i g i o n s - ~ e s c h i )
criticism of the narrative. The neglect of this procedure
has, according to Gunkel and others, led to much mis-
understanding of some of the narratives in the O T
(notably those of Pandise, of the Deluge, and of Jonah),
and it would perhap.3 he too much to suppose that no
loss would he sustained by the neglect of it in the study
of the NT. ( 2 ) It is also possible to begin our con-
sideration of the narratives of the Trials by applying a
purely literary criticia.m-i.e., by determining. so far as
may be possible, from what literary sources they pro-
ceed, and explaining their details by reference to the OT
or to passages in the traditional life of Jesus. W e may
1 In Acts 20 19 Rev. 3 IO, etc., RV gives 'trial' in the text.
4957
then consider whether, enileavouring to realise in some
slight degree the mental state of Jesus, and applying the
ordinary canons of probability, we can venture to point
out a historical nucleus of the traditional story of the
Trials, and we may then compare, or contrast, the
Christian tradition with apparent parallels elsewhere.
( 3 ) W e may, without disparaging either of the preced-
ing methods, consider whether light cannot be thrown
on the Christian tradition by inquiring whether the
peculiarities of the narrative may not be accounted for
by the discovery of some custom or observance the
details of which are similar in essentials to those of the
story of the Trials, and yet are beyond the suspicion of
having been derived from it. The difference between
the first and the second of these methods and between
both and the third is striking. It may, however, be
minimised, when the student of literary criticism is not
opposed to the comparative study of myths, and when
the student of strange customs does not at a11 deny
the importance of illustrating, and to some extent a t
least explaining, the narrative from biblical and extra-
biblical literary sources. T h e essential truth of the
significant and instructive narrative of the Temptation
is of course not a matter of controversy. Cp Cheyne,
Hallowing 4 Criticism.]
It is usual to explain the origin of the three synoptic
reports of the temptation by one or other of two critical
1. Three hypotheses: ( u ) that Mk.'s represents a
bare and brief allusion to the larger story,
stories. substantially reproduced in Mt. and Lk.,
w-hich was already current when he wrote (cp 433, allu-
sion to parables omitted), or (6) that Mt. and Lk.
represent a common and somewhat mythical expansion
(in Q, the Login-source) of the original nucleus pre-
served by Mk. Keither of these hypotheses is without
its difficulties, however, and it seems preferable upon
the whole to conjecture that Mk.'s report constitutes a n
allied though independent acconnt of the incident (in
the Ur-Marcus or Petrine narrative), which has been
depicted with fuller ethical detail and for other ends in
(2 and thence transferred with editorial modifications to
Mt. and Lk. The standpoint for criticising the con-
tents of both stories is furnished by the principle that in
its higher forms temptation becomes more than ever a
mystery-hard to understand as an experience and
harder to communicate, especially to less sensitive souls
with a tendency to materialise the subtler elements of
moral conflict.
Upon this view Mk. 1 12f. portrays the inaugura-
tion of Jesus as Messiah by a contest with daemonic
2. Mk. ~2~ powers whom he encountered in bestial
form. The allusion to 'wild beasts' is
not a realistic touch (see §§ gf.) or a reference to the
loneliness and danger of the experience, much less a
subtle parallel to the first Adam (Gen. 128 219), but
symbolic- and symbolic not of passions and hostile
powers3 but of devils who appeared in such guise to
1 The author of the Fourth Gospel with his higher Christ-
ology, naturally omits the temptation & one of several features
(c.g., the agony in Gethsemane) in the human experience of
Jesus which would not have lain in line with his specific con..
ception of Christ's person. He prefers to dwell on the resultant'
sinlessness (7 18 8 46), and the incidental allusions to a strife
(1227-32 1430) breathe security of triurpph rather than intensity
of struggle.
2 Mk. 1 1-13 though not a n excerpt from earlier and fuller
writings, is a k h n r i of facts already familiar in the evangebk
tradition (c 'the gospel,' u. I ). That does not imply, however,
that n. r z f i s the conscious abbreviationof a tale corresponding
to that preserved in Mt. and Lk., even although the Logia
underlying those gospels was composed of didactic piices which
circulated earlier than the Ur-Marcus. See Soltau's Unsrre
EvangPZien 35-50 and A. Menzies' Earliest Cosgel 62-63.
3 As Redlie U&us de Nazareth, 2 14) suggest;-' lcb Etes
sauvages sont les passions dCvorantes que dkhainent les r6volu-
tions violentes ; les anges conseillent et donnent s1: armes pures
d e la persuasion et de I'appel aux consciences. This is too
modern an idea. In Jewish apocalyptic angels are often violent
and punitive, by no meam to be identified with gracious a n d
entle influences. The wilderness might also be symbolic
PHerm. Vis.i. 13), or part of scenic accompaniment of
the a
4958
 TEMPTATION O F JESUS
the vision of devotees in the desert. To the fervour
and imagination of Jesus the divine spirit is like a
fluttering dove (u. I O ), the satanic spirits like wild beasts.
Here, as afterwards in human form (123, etc., especially
12227 with the different application in Mt. 728), the
satanic spirits comprise for Mk. a prominent sphere in
which Jesus lived and worked as Messiah, the foe of
daemons. This interpretation of Mk. ‘s language.’ there-
fore, is not simply in line with the naive psychology of
the age,2 which peopled the desert with haunting deities,
visible especially to rapt devotees, but entirely consonant
with the leading idea of Jesus’ career developed in Mk.’s
gospel (cp the mutual recognition of Jesus and daemons
in 123f. 34 311f. 56 f.920; and Wrede’s Das Messias-
geheimniss in den Euangelien, 2 3 J ).
Common to all three gospels is the symbolic term
of forty days ’ (cp the forty years of Israel in the
3. Common wilderness, Dt. 8 2 , and the forty days’
fast in the experience of Moses [Ex. 34281
m~tter. and Elijah [ I K. 1981, and see N UMBER ,
5 8) to delineate, as in Acts 1 3 . a considerable period
of time. In Mk., at any rate, whatever be thought of
Mt. 411 (cp 8 1 5 2 5 4 4 2 7 5 5 ) , the angelic3 service has no
reference to food (Ps. 7 8 2 5 Wisd. 1620). I t is simply
the counterpart of satanic opposition,* and represents
a n experience of continuous aid during the vigil, not
(as in Mt.) a reward and refreshment vouchsafed after
the strain. All three accounts, however, imply that
Jesus passed through the prolonged crisis without fall
or wound. Whatever he thought or sought in the desert,
his character suffered no deflection or compromise, much
less defeat. This is developed in Mt. and Lk., who
draw independently upon a didactic passage in the Logia
which evidently contained a naive, pictorial descrip-
tion of what Jesus experienced in a far less matter-
of-fact and obvious fashion at this period. T h e form
of it is vivid and severely simple upon the u-hole, but
dramatic rather than mysterious, and naturally less
impressive, because less inward and direct, than the
later record of Jesus’ strenuous temptation in Geth-
semane or even of his sharp encounter with an insidious
enticement near Caesarea Philippi (Mk. 8-31-33), I t now
remains for us to consider the temptation-vision in this
semi-parabolic presentment which Mt. and Lk. have
realistically preserved. (Cp HC [ I ~ O I ] 1 i. 45-48. )
Both in Mt. and in Lk. the onginal report of Q has
been worked over, and traces of editorial handling are
4. Mt,and Lk. obvious if (as a rule) comparatively
unimportant.
Favourite or characteristic Matthaean terms in 4 1-11 are :
‘then ’ (&a, guater), ‘ coming forward ’ (rpoucAfGv), ‘ the
vision (Rev. 17 3) translated into circumstantial prose. But the
literal sense is quite suitable and natural.
1 It is one hit of evidence in favour of the verdict that whilst
Mk.’s gospel rests upon facts, not upon ideas, at a relatively
small number of points ‘ legendary features have come to attach
themselves to the facts’(0. Holtzmann in ZNTW,igor, p. 273).
2 Fordemonsinbestialshapesee, ey.,,Mk.5rzll Rev. 1’231311
16 13 f.,and-for the current belief in their connection with
waste and lonely places-Mt. 1343 (DEMONS, 0 3 : M AGIC, 5 2,
6. I , and Cheyne on Is. 13 n),with Charles’ note on Apoc. Bar.
,108. These and other traces of Semitic folklore (see Doughty,
‘.Ar.Des. 2 189-194)form the atmosphere for much in the synoptic
tales of evil spirits and their malign influence upon men (cp
also 2 Cor. 11 3 ; Everling, Die $ad. AngeZoZogie, etc., 51-57).
In the Arahic ‘gospel of the infancy’ demons emerge from a
lad‘s mouth in the shape of crows and serpents (A#oc?y$AaZ
Gospels, ed. B. H. Cowper r79).,
3 Evidently part of th; primitive tradition, for Mk. never
mentions angels elsewhere in narrative. A Johannine equivalent
inan. 1 51 ?
Just as the ‘rulers of this world ’ ( ~ ~ X O V T Froir
S a&os TO~TOU,
I Cor. 26-8) are evil spirits who attempt to thwart the Lord of
glory, so here the Messiah encounters supernatural foes, after
Ps. 2 zf: where the rulers ( 0 ; d p x o v ~ e sgather
) against the Lord
and his anointed (.a‘. K a T & TOG X ~ L U T Oa ~h o S ) , the latter being
God’s sonparexceZZence (a ?=Mk. 1 I T Lk. 3 zz [D] etc.). Cp
Clem. Horn. 8 22 of Satan setting himself to catch h i (Bvpe6ew
a h b v dnrxecpirv) at this period. In Herm. Vis. iv. 2 4 Segri is the
angel with authority over beasts such as are seen in the vision.
The conception of Messiah as inevitahly assailed by daemons is
preserved in Rev. 12 4f: (cp Mk. 3 27 and specially Mt. 8 29).
4959
TEMPTATION O F JESUS
tempter’ (6 marpa’<wv), ‘and’ (84, 4). ‘the holy city’ ( T ~ Vdyiay
rr6hrv) 1 ‘ takes ’ (rrapaAapgbvec, bis), the asyndeton in 7, ‘ again
& h , ais), ‘ the world’ (roir r6upou, 8), ‘and behold’ ( m i &6),
;
besides the additions of 4c, 8 (high hill), and ‘depart, Satan’
(;rays uamv2, IO). Lucan peculiarities in 4 1-13 are : ‘ full of
holy Spirit ’ (mbjpqc mv. dyiov 2 db) ‘ in those days ’ (ZV Tais
jp+s ;&vats), ‘and he said’(<nr& Ad: GOSPELS, $ 38, n. z),
‘answer ’ (~irrorpivsuOarrp&) ‘ lead ’ (+, ais) ‘ departed ’ (hi-
mp+ev,3 +),TOG with infid. (IO), ‘ wprld’ (kroupdvq, cp 2 I),
‘complete ( P V V T ~ & , 6is), ‘before ( ~ V ~ H C O V ) ,‘ departed
( L H ~ u ~ besides
), the addition of 26, 5 (in an instant), 6c, 9
[ ~ v T E ~ O C V io(tosafeguard
), thee), 13 (for a season), and the omis-
sion of the angelic ministry at the close (made up for by the later
vision of 2243?).
I t is evident that the original tale in Q was little altered
in subsequent recensions and that the final editors have
reproduced it accurately though not slavishly, preserving
the essential features of the story. T h e main exception
to this rule is the altered order of the second and third
temptations by a process of transposition which is fairly
common throughout the synoptics (see SERMON O N THE
M OUNT , 5 9). There are no data which would enable
us to decide with any confidence which, if either,
represents the original series in the Logia, much
less the actual sequence. Fortunately the order is not
a matter of m ~ m e n t . ~Each of the two canonical
sequences has plausible features and is ethically effective,
especially in view of the gospel in which it occurs.
In Mt., where Jesus is pictured as the real if unex-
pected ( 1 1 3 ) Messiah of Judaism, the newly realised
consciousness of his position ( 3 17) suggests the final and
supreme temptation of adopting compromise with ex-
ternal methods in order to gain the universal dominion
which formed his goal (48-11). The true Messiah, as
had been already seen in part (Ps. Sol. 1737-45), was to
be no second Solomon hut one whose reliance was solely
upon God for strength and wisdom. In Lk., again,
the climax is not merely that the O T scriptures them-
selves might suggest unworthy ideas, but that pre-
sumptuous claims upon God are a danger subtler than
seductions appealing to the flesh or to the external and
sensuous inclinations (49-12). Besides, ‘ thou shalt not
tempt the Lord thy God ’ formed a dramatic and appro-
priate ending to the initial series of temptations in a life
which Lk. emphasises ( 4 1 3 2228) as a tempted existence
throughout. Further, an apologetic tendency is to be
traced in his anxiety to give a more natural geographical
order, to show that the retirement was due to a
spontaneous and spiritual impulse or rather habit
( 4 r f . , ?rx?jpp?ls7rvelparos dylou . . . TyyETo Pv T Q ?rveli-
pan, cp Rom. 8 14), and to explain for the benefit of
non-Jewish readers (46, b r i .. . a w v ) how Satan
could reasonably make such an offer.7 The awkward
1 The Gospel of the Hebrews apparently agreed here wit!
Lk. ( ~ h8akKbV
b O;K &e, ’ “ 6;s i v b iav m6hcv“ bhh’ ‘‘& IhGp
[kpovuahrjp], Handmann, TU [18887v. 3 70). The telic note,
characteristic of Mt. (4 I), is added to Lk. harmonistically by
Ss as Lk.’s ‘for a season ’ to Mt. 4 I r a (so Cur.).
4 Here as at 8 zz (= Mt. 3 16 Mk. 1 I O ), the most correct form
(Dalman ’ Wortejesu 166,Q.
3 In u: I, whither?’ Hardly to Galilee (v. 14). There is a
good deal to he said for Hahn’s idea that the retirement and
conflict of Jesus in Lk. forms an aside-a change of purpose (cp
o. I a?d v. 14). Certainly that is the impression left by the
narrative. But this may be due simply to the ill-arranged order
of Lk. at this point (see, e.K., the unchronological position of
3 rgf:) and not to the author’s real conception.
4 The thoughts crossed and recrossed each another, occurred
and recurred and the record is simply a classified summary of
forty days’ rekections and examinations’ (Peyton), or rather of
prolonged agitation in mind and soul. Some historical signifi-
cance, however, is attached by Hnnig to the order (desert, hill
=Galilee, temple= Jerusalem); see also 0. Holtzmann’s Leben
j e s u , 35,L 1083
5 Bruce ( E q k x , G r k
Test. 1486) prefers to regard this as the
first instance of Lk.’s editorial solicitude : no evil thoughts
possihle in the mind of such a holy mail.
6 Mt. naturally takes it for granted that his readers understand
the Jewish notion shared hy most early Christians, that the
present age and world lay under the control (2 Cor. 4 4 Eph. 6 12,
etc.; Everling, 0). cit. 49 ,L, 107 f:) of Satan as king of the
present time (6 H ~ ~ U K U j3aurheu’c)
~ O ~ or king of the present
things @. T&V rrapbvrwv) [Clem. Wont. 8 21).
7 The transport to a hill-top, characteristic of Jewish apoca-
lyptic (Rev. 21 10, cp Herm. Siin. ix. 1 I , etc., also Ezek. 402,
Apoc. Bar. %a), is also softened down (dvayayh), and stress
4960
 TEMPTATION OF JESUS
insertion of the genealogy (323-38) between the baptism
and the temptation may have been intended to suggest
that Jesus was mature. a s well a s equipped by descent,
a t his entrance upon ministry a n d at the moment of his
conflict withSatan ( s o ,evidently, Justin, Dial. 125, 354:
S ~ ydp
E dv8pwror y ~ y o v s v upouijh8ev
, ad+ 6 Grh/3ohor).
I t cxtainly makes the connection, rightly emphasised in
Mk. 1 1 2 ( K R ~eliObs) a n d even Mt. (41, T ~ T E ) ,somewhat
loose.
Treating the subject ,sf their relation to similar narratives
s
elsewhere (see 13) we may remark that the fiFurative 1 stories
i n Mt. and Lk. were written in an atmosphere
6. COntentS Of of belief in Satan as the arch-opponent of
the tradition. Gods authority (Mt. 1227 J=Lk. 11 19 f.,
etc.) and the personal agent in seduction-
a lielief (Jewish and early Christian ; Spitta, Dar Urchiist. 134-
$3) which there is no reason to doubt was shared, in however
minimieed and moralised a form, by Jesus himself. In two
other visions of spiritual conflict recorded by Lk.9 (10 18 22 3 1 ~ 3 ,
Satan appears as the dekated protagonist of Jesus ; and these,
like the original nucleus of the ba tism-story (Historical New
Testament, 1901, p. 18) and posshy also the transfiguration,
certainly represent (b+qrjsaTo +pi", Clem. Hom. 11 3j) auto-
biographical commnnications of one who, like Paul, though far
from being a viaionary, had visions and moments of rapture,
especially at crises of his religious experience. The3e communi-
cations3 must have been made to the disciples in order to re-
assure, impress (Mt. '26 gs), and clarify their minds. The main
object was to throw light upon his own method and aims, and
also by inference upon the course of life to be followed by his
adherents. Hence, in their present didactic form, it is not easy
to determine whether the stories originally possessed a Messianic
or a human significance, unless'both are conceived to have lain
blended together.
[With regard to the order ofthe three Trials, it is worth men-
tioning (after 0. Holtzmann, Lc6erL /esu, $3 72) that according
to the fragments of the Gospel of the Hebrews (referred to again
in # 14) the narrative was originally so arranged that the
temptation on the mountain came first, that in the city second,
and that in the wilderness third, whereas in Mt. the order 1s :
wilderness, city, mountain, and in Lk. wilderness, mountain,
city. He gives psychological reasons for preferring the order of
the Gospel of the Hebrews, pointing out that it coincides more-
over with that in which the texts quoted from Deuteronomy
occur ( G 13 16 S zJ). It was in Deuteronomy, he supposes,
that Jesus, in the prolonged period of meditation after his
baptism in which his vocation had been revealed to him, sought
for the guidance of which he felt in need.]
i. Loneliness and f a ~ t i n g the, ~ normal conditions of
a n ecstasy or trctnce, naturally introduce the first
6. The three synoptic temptation, the ethical point of
which lies in the refusal of Jesus to
trials. seek exemption from the limitations of
common needs and bodily privations. T h e later
counsel Mt. 625-33 . s thus grounded in his own ex-
perience (cp Jn. 4 3 ~ 3 4and Mt. 108-10 Lk. 9 3 104).
Divine sonship. even. in its highest degree, is thereby
shown to confer no title to exceptional treatment ; it
merely enforces the duty of loyalty to Gods interests
a n d demands as the supreme thing in the moral life
(see the application o f this in Jn. 626,f), and the com-
panion duty of faith, that such devotion shall not be left
ultimately destitute by God.
ii. W i t h admirable penetration the very intensity of
such faith is represented in the temple-temptation as a n
insidious occasion for presumption. T h e inclination
laid on the time ( d i e UTL pji xpdvov, 45). The appositeness of
Mt. 4 3 and the more viviYLk. 4 3 lies in the resemblance between
the rounded shingle of' the locality and loaves of bread (cp
hft. 79). There is no subtle allusion to the Baptist's remark
(Mt. 39 I I ) , which indeed is amply illustrated otherwise (cp
Klein in ZiVTW, ~ p r pp. , 343.344).
1 They appear to lie between achronicleand apoeticalparahle.
As early as the seventeenth century, the Temptation was viewed
as 'an interchange of dangerous thoughts,' by I3althasar Bekker :
forward in Hebrews, a hook linguistically allied to I.k.-Acts.-
- -. .... ....
3 l?nr the ;mnqrGnrr
rl-. -1 ..._
_l.Y.l~.-
nf rhp c.,hcrsnm
.IYY .,.-~~.-.,.-..-. ..
nC P C C ~ . , E ; P L _1
see Acts 11 4 5 IBgJ 1 8 9 3 2 2 6 5 , etc. and Asc. Isaire 6 10-15
.,"A
Y.IU
+.l)nrPC
1
'Oculi eiiis erant aperti, os vero clausu;, sed inspiratid spirit&
erat cum illo. Visio quam videbat, non erat de seculo hoc, sed
de alwondito omni carni. Et cum cessavit a visione, reversus
notificavit visionem Ezechiz et filio eius Nasoni.'
J See Gunkel's Die Wirkung-n des hei(ipen (7eisfes(r899),2 2 ,
and FASTTNG, 2 (with P ROPHETIC LITERATURE, $ 19). A
notable exception occurs in Rev. 1g f: Intense prayer may
have preceded the Teinptation (see von der Goltz. das Gebef,
3-4), but it is not specifdly mentioned.
4961
TEMPTATION O F J E S U S
now is to abuse not one's feeling of independence but
one's consciousness of dependence-ie., the current
pious conviction, shared by Jesus, that God could a n d
would miraculously interpose on behalf of his servants
in peril. Jesus repels this suggestion. Genuine faith
in man, he is convinced, will be content to believe in
G o d s care without nervously insisting upon arbitrary
proofs of it.
iii. T h e mountain-temptation depicts Jesus' rejection
of another attractive a n d plausible idea which occurrcd
to him (no doubt suggested in part by popular expecta-
tion), viz., that his Messianic goal might be swiftly a n d
smoothly reached along paths bordering upon com-
promise. Renan's motto for the scene- -'Christ or
Mahomet '-hits off one aspect of the dilemma precisely.
Yet the bearing of the temptation need not be exclusively
messianic, as Mk. 8 3 6 shows ; the latter passage2 (with
8 3 3 ) indicating also that here at any rate the larger
temptation-narrative, relegated not without psychological
aptness to the opening of Jesus' life, forms really a
miniature of the fundamental temptations which recurred
as constant factors in his career, just as the Sermon on
the Mount is placed by Mt. unchronologically in the
forefront of the ministry as a summary of his general
teaching. No doubt the moral insight of Jesus carried
with it foresight of coming perils. At Nazareth he had
not been out of touch with currents surging from the
outside pagan world and its glories (see GASm. H G
35-37,433-435,for the consciousness of ethnic splendour
possible to a Galilzan). But the full force of such a
temptation could not be felt until he had entered defi-
nitely upon his public mission (cp Jn. 6 1 4 J ) ; a n d the
same may be said of the temple-temptation (Mt. 26 53f: ),
for hitherto Jesus, though acquainted of course with the
dizzy pinnacle of the temple (Jos. Ant. xv. 115 ) , had
run n o risk to his person (see further the didactic side
of this developed in Mt. 1017-31 Lk. 122-12). T h e
difficulty of Jesus a t the outset naturally was to see and
choose the true niethod : his subsequent trial, recurring
at frequent stages, was to adhere to the choice made in
this initial hour of insight.
T h e Logia passage on the temptation thus represented
the disciples' memory of Jesus' memory. I t %-as the
., Historical literary embodiment, coloured by O T
reminiscence^,^ of a crisis in the life of
nucleus. Jesus which ( c p Mt. 1229 Mk. 327) he
imparted in an^ ideal and concentrated form, looking
back o n it through the later, deeper experience of his
1 The ethical triumph of the crisis, as Keim pints out ( 3 e s s
van Nazara E T 2 328) is not simply that Jesus conquered but
that ' the inixorabe godiike loftiness of his judgment discovered
the devil in scruples which even the noblest would have fondled
as spiritual pearls.' .Further with the possible and partial
exception of the hunger -exp;rience the allurements in this
initial crisis of Jesus' life are depictej as attractive rather than
threatening or painful. All trial (in the modern sense of the
word) is temptation; hut all temptations are not trials. As
Gethsemane indicates, Jesus felt the harsh as well as the soft
touch and emerged from the ordeal unspoiled : cp rrirrov0fv
mir,sbc'mrpau8& .
. . xwpis dpaprias (Heh. 2 18 4 I j).
2 The allusion to Peter as an embodiment of Satan corresponds
with the early Christian belief that seductions through human
influence were the devil's work (Weinel, IViykulrgeir des Geisfes
2'. der Gtister, 1 4 . ~ 7[189g]);but the synoptic stories, in their
present form at any rate, expressly exclude the idea that Jesus
had to grapple in the temptation with anything but spiritual
hosts of wickedness (Eph. A 11-13). Even the notion of the
temple-temptation as a miracle of display before a crowd is rather
irrelevant and theatrical. For the unpolitical character of
' 3 The OT citations afe al! from Q3 and present little or no
1 Y.l ...-..,.
,i:ffi.-,.h., l
.
l
.. I.._I..-
ns+ d-*- nm.+c -,.. hpfnrp
.. ~ .,.... -A- -P ,
"_.I." iW-,n r , with
the other variants 2" Bpry (Zghn, Einl. 2 316 ; Nestle, Einfuhr.
-
fn r_.X.>>.,
2 1 1 ) and dv b$parr are insignificant and uncertain. Ps. 91 113
is quoted uith some freedom in Mt. 46. But in citing Dt. ti 13
both Mt. and Lk. agree with @ A in suhstitntingrrpou~uvrjusisfor
+o@&q and in adding pdvy to a h @ . The sequel in Ps. 28f:
to 2,. 7 may have suggested the mountain -temptation, just as
perhap- the beasts of Ps. 91 13 may have suggested Mk. 113.
Rut such conformations or infusions are at most subordinate to the
dominant factor in the composition of the story-viz., the en-
deavour to summarise the cardinal temptations of Jesus.
4962
 TEMPTATION O F JESUS
actual ministry, when the initials eductions had become
more grave and subtle than before. The historical
nucleus of the tradition is the natural and overpowering
impulse which drove Jesus into the gaunt, wild solitudes
W.' or rather E. of the Jordan to reflect upon the
strange consciousness (Baldensperger, Das Selbsf-
bewussbsein Jesu, 2 2 9 3 ) which had recently dawned
upon him at his baptism,* to forecast its issues and
determine his course of action (cp Gal. 115-17). I t is
noticeable that he does not seem to have doubted the
reality of his Messianic consciousness; for the words
'if thou art a son of God ' ( e l uibs EP TOG @EO;) do not
bear this full hypothetical meaning. What he had to
win clearness and conviction upon was the real nature
and consequences of his position ; if any hesitation or
uncertainty upon the genuineness of this occurred to
him, it was during the period of conflict8 (implied by
Mk. and Lk., not Mt. ) and self-questioning preceding
that in which Mt. and Lk. place the triple and typical
conflict of what is rather inappropriately termed fhe
Temptation of Jesus. J. Mo.
It has been remarked above (introd.) that light might
be expected to be thrown upon the singular and sug-
gestive story of the Trials of Jesus by comparing it
with more or less striking parallels in the literature of
other religions, but that it is also possible that the
insertion of such a narrative (which i s plainly not
literally true) may conceivably be accounted for by the
existence of some custom or observance which may have
led the narrator to postulate such an event as the threefold
trial at the opening of the ministry of Jesus. I n an essay
read before the Oxford Society of Historical Theology in
Nov. 1901(an abstract of which is given in the Society's
Proceedings [privately printed], 1901-2,pp. 27-31)the
view has been expressed by Prof. A. A. Bevan that the
so-called Temptation-story in its original form ( i e . , a
form resembling the narrative in Mk. ) was a description
of a traditional practice or ceremony, by which, it was
supposed, a man could obtain control over demons.
8. Possible The practice referred to must have
light from the bee. of ancient origin, and it has con-
modern East. tinued in the East down to the present
day. Rather than attempt to describe
it anew, Prof. Bevan cites the testimony of an Oriental,
as reported by Prof. E. G. Browne in his work, A Year
amongst the Persians (1893), 148 .f. About fifteen
years ago Prof. Browne heard this story from a
philosopher of IsfahBn, entitled Aminu-sh-Shari'at.
'At one time of my life I devoted myself to the occult
sciences, and made an attempt to obtain control over thejinnis,
with what results I will tell yon. You mnst know, in the first
place that the modus operana'z' is as follows :-The seeker after
this ;owe, chooses some solitary and dismal spot.
. .. . There
he must remain for forty days. . . He spends the greater part
of this time in incantations in the Arabic language, which he
recites within the area of the nzancfui, or geometrical figure,
which he must describe in a certain way on the ground. Besides
this, he must eat very little food, and diminish the amount
daily. If he has faithfully observed all these details on the
twenty-first day a lion will appear, and will enter tie magic
circle. The operator must not allow himself to be terrified by
this apparition, and, above all, must on no account quit the
mu&Z, else he will lose the results of all his pains. If he
resists the lion, other terrible forms will come to him on suhse-
quent days-tigers, dragons, and the like-which he must
similarly withstand. If he holds his ground till the fortieth
- ~~
In the vicinity O f BV:THAnARA? c p JOHN THE BAPTIST,
5 I. On the ha gard, austere Jndaean desert with its vipers
(Mt. 37) see GA8m. H G 312-317.
2 Justin (DiuL 103, 331) loosely hrings the two into close
connection-&a ri) bwap+ar ai& Arb roi, 'IopSdwau the voice
from heaven is foll&ed by the temptation to worship the devil.
3 In Cknz. Horn. (11 35 192) these forty days are occupied
by discussirrns (EkaA6ycdar) with the devil (rrporpCnov .ai a m -
rrrifhv, 8 21). See the striking passage cited from Victor Hugo's
Quutre-vin@-iveize (in John Morley's Studies in Liieruiure,
q 5 J ) on the moral incitements and haunting effects of Nature
upon the human conscience, and especially of Nature in her
more sava-e and gloomy scenes. Where the strong conscience
resists, a$ develops by resisting, 'the puny conscience soon
.
turns reptile . . it undergqes the mysterious infiltration of ill
suggestions and superstition.
4963
TEMPTATION O F J E S U S
day, he has attained his object and the jynnis, having been
unable to get the mastery over'him, will have to become his
servants and obey all his behests. Well, I faithfully observed
all the necessary conditions, and on the twenty-first day, sure
enough, a lion appeared and entered the circle. Next day a
tiger came, and still I succeeded in resisting the impulse which
urged me to flee. But when on the following day a most
hideous and frightful dragod appeared, I could nb longer
control my terror, and rushed from the circle, renouncing all
further attempts at obtaining the mastery over the j'imacs.
When some time had elapsed after this, and I had pursued my
studies in philosophy further, I came to the conclusion that I
had been the victim of hallucinations excited by expectation,
solitude, hunger, and long vigils ; and, with a view to testing
the truth of this hypothesis, I again repeated the process which
I had before practised, this time in a spirit of philosophical
incredulity. My expectations were justified ; I saw absolutely
nothing. And there is another fact which proves to my mind
that the phantoms I saw on the first occasion had no existence
outside my own brain. I had never seen a real lion then, and
my ideas about the appearance of that animal were entirely
derived from the pictures which may be seen over the doors
of baths in this country. Now, the lion which I saw in the
magic circle was exactly like the latter in form and colouring,
and, therefore, as I need hardly say, differed considerably in
aspect from a real lion.
This custom, it will be noticed, belongs to the large
class of observances now often called 'ceremonies of
9. Initiation initiation,' that is to say, ceremonies
by which a man is introduced into
ceremonies. some new line of life. such as that of
a warrior, a priest, a king, and so forth. Among
savages, as is well known, these ceremonies are
often very elaborate and very repulsive, involving, for
example, mutilations of the body and other torments ;
among civilised peoples there is naturally a tendency to
soften them down, or suppress them altogether ; but
traces of them have survived in almost every country of
the world.
In the particular case under consideration the purpose
subjuga- of the ceremony is perfectly clear,
tion of jinn. nanicly, to obtain power over those
beings whom modern Orientals call
jinn-a term which- in meaning corresponds to the
Jewish sh2dhim and to the Greek Galpoves, Garpbvta.
Later Jewish writers told that King Solomon possessed such
a power (+ xar& T&Y 6ai)*6vwv ~Cxwvp,as Josephus calls it).
Josephus also states that Solomon composed incantations
whereby diseases are relieved, and left behind him forms of
exorcism, whereby men control and drive ont demons, so that
they can never return. H e a'dds, 'even to the present day this
mode of cure prevails among us to a very great extent * (Ani.
viii. 2 5).
In this connection it is to be observed that both in
ancient and in modern times a distinction is made
between sulhjugating demons, as Solomon is supposed to
have done, and entering info league with them, in order
to gain some advantage for oneself or to injure one's
enemies. T h e former is called lawful, the latter unlawful
magic. Now the ceremony which we are discussing
evidently belongs to the former category, and that it
bears a striking resemblance to the accounts of the
temptation in the Gospels, as Prof. Bevan points out,
In both cases we
ll. Illustrates
gospel cannot be denied.
story. find the forty days spent in the desert,
the fastinp. and the Dresence of the
wild beasts.
"l
It is also plain that in the Synoptic
narrative of Jesus' ministry the casting out of demons
is a continually recurring feature. It appears natural,
therefore, that the narrative should begin with an
account of the process by which Jesus' power over
the demons was acquired. Nor must we overlook the
important fact that the Fourth Gospel, which omits the
'Temptation,' also omits all reference to the casting out
of demons. Does not this give plausibility to the view
that the early Christians believed that their Master had
obtained control over the demons by performing this
rite at the outset of his niinistry? Further corro-
borations of this view are given in the abstract of this
essay in the Proceedings referred to.
An earlier explanation must, however, he mentioned.
The more we familiarise ourselves with the utterances
4964
 TEMPTATION O F JESUS
of primitive antiquity,
. . the more we are relieved from the
12. Possible difiiciilties incident to a literalistic and
light from rationalistic reading of ancient religious
~ ~ I . records. Primitive antiquity delights
mJ”ns* in myths. and details dehved from
myths were not held to be misplaced in narratives the
nucleus of which was historical. Indeed, even whole
episodes might be borrowed from myths and adapted
to their own needs by the writers of popular narratives,
without any sense of incongruity. How largely this is
the case in the earlier portion of Israelite history, is
becoming known, and there is no sufficient reason for
denying the existence of a more or less modified mythic
embroidery in early Christian narratives. The narrative
of the Temptation of Jesus is one of the most precious
of these narratives. W e cannot call it ”an allegory any
more than we can call the Hebrew paradise-story an
allegory, for it is piit forth as history-such history as
to early Christians of a primitive habit of mind appeared
to need no proof, because it was ideally and undeniably
true. Had these been called upon to prove the facts
of the history, they would not have understood the
summons, unless. indeed, it came to them from one
who was equally sceptical a s to all that the truly ancient
mind held most dear, and in this case they would have
scorned to answer it. W e need not then indulge the
pleasant fancy that Jesus himself may have given the
impetus to the production of the temptation narrative,
by giving some of his nearest disciples glimpses of his
early soul-history. The fancy is not only unnecessary
but also unwise-at least, if it entices us to suppose that
our purely subjective imaginings are of equal value with
critical or traditional facts, and so to lose that sobriety
which in a student of religion is the crowning moral
quality.
There are two stories’ parallel to that now before us
which deserve the attention of the student. One is the
13. Specially Temptation of Zarathustra (Zoroaster)
by the evil spirit Angra Mainyu; the
parallel other is the Temptation of Gaiitama
stories. (the Buddha) by the demon Mara. In
both these stories the tempter seeks first of all to over-
come the Holy One by violence, and only when this
effort fails has recourse to spiritual temptations.
Ahriman, ‘the guileful one, he the evil-doer,’ bids a demon
rush down upon Zarathustra. But the holy Zarathustra step;
forward to meet him wielding ‘stones as big as a house,
obtained from Ahura’ Mazda (;.e thunderbolts). Then the
pileful one, fearing the overthrow‘Af his own empire, promises
arathustra that if he will ‘renounce the good law of the wor-
shippers of Mazda,’ he !shall ‘gain such a boon zs Zohak gained,
the ruler of the natious.’2 Zarathustra answers, ‘ No I never will
. .
I renounce the good law . though my body, my life, my
soul, should burst. Arid when Ahriman howls out, ‘ By whose
word wilt thou strike and repel,’ Zarathustra answers, ‘The
words taught by Mazda, these are my weapons, my best
weapons. Once more he chants the sacred formula, the Ahuna
Vairya, and prays, ‘This I ask thee :teach me the truth, 0 Lord !’ 3
With this, Darmesteter well compares the Tempta-
tion of Gautama by the demon Mara.
The legend is that when the young Indian prince made the
‘great renunciation to devote himself to the discovery of truth
for the sake of his fellowmen, Mara became visible in the air,
promising that in seven d a F from now the wheel of empire
would appear, and would make Gautama sovereign over the four
continents and the two adjacent isles. Baffled, the demon Mara
sends his three daughters Craving Discontent and Lust ; but
their wiles are fruitless; dn the foAy-ninth da;the king of the
gqds brings water for his face, and the four guardian angels
minister to him.6
I t is plain that both these stories are of mythic origin ;
1 Already referred to by J. E. Carpenter, T k Firsf Three
Gospels, 1 6 5 3 ; J. M. Robertson, Christianity andinyfhoiogy,
343 353 3 5 5 . .
2 A king IU ancient I ranian mythology who ruled the world
for a thowand years.
3 VmdidGd (Zendavesta), 19 1-11 (tly Revelation chapter)
SBR4204-206;cp Intrd. p. Ixxvii. rhere is also a hriefe;
account of the episode in the Dinkart, besides allusions to it
elsewhere (A. V. Williams Jackson, Zoronsler, the Prophet of
Ancient Z m a , 53).
4 O r m a d e f Ahriman, 201.
5 Birfh Sforics (Rhys Davids), 1y 96/: 168
4965
TEMPTATION O F J E S U S
plain too that psychological reflection has done more
for the Buddhist story than for the 2oroastrian.l The
more archaic of the two stories is the Temptation of
Zarathustra, the more appealing the Temptation of
Gautama. Darmesteter traces both to the nature-myth
embodied in the dialogue of the Panis and Saramg in
the Rig Veda. This, at least, seems highly probable ;
14. lyIythic the Temptation-stories in general origin-
ated in the mythical conflict between the
elements. Light god and the Storm - spirit, and
~
while we fully grant that the story of the Temptation
of Jesus has been, like that of the Temptation of
Gautama, enriched by psychological reflection, and
(we may add in the case of the Gospel-story) by remini-
scences of the Temptation of i\dam and of ancient Israel,
we cannot consistently deny that its ultimate germs are
mythical. Not that the mythic element in this story
can be traced to imitation of either of the two parallel
stories mentioned above (§ 15) ; so far as we know as
yet, it is only in the apocryphal Gospels (150-700
A . D. ) that Buddhistic influence can safely be admitted.
Indeed, the ‘exceeding high mountain,’ from the top
of which the tempter shows Jesus ‘ all the kingdoms of
the world and the glory of them,’ would seem to be
suggested by the Babylonian mountain of the gods
which passed into the folklore of the Israelites 2 (cp
Is. 14 13 Ezek. 28 16), and is ultimately the great mythic
earth-mountain. ‘ W e know not where to look for the
“high mountain,”’ remarks Keim. T h e Gospel accord-
ing to the Hebrews, however, did know. According to
a fragment in O r i g e r ~ ’, ~the Saviour said, Even now my
mother the Holy Spirit hath seized me by one of my
hairs, and hath brought me to the great mountain
Tabor (eapwp, Tapwp).’ Why Tabor? Probably by
a misunderstanding. It was the mountain of the
Navel am^) that was originally meant- the mountain
in the earth’s centre. Earlier generations knew where
this mountain was-it was in the old Hebrew Paradise,
but certainly no one in the first Christian century could
have localised that Paradise.4 It was also on this
mountain that we should have expected to find Jesus
spending the forty days ; the analogies of Ex. 24 18 3428
I K. 198J point distinctly to this. But here again the
lapse of centuries since the period of a still flourishing
folklore must be borne in mind. Since these passages
were written transcendentalism had placed its seal on
Jewish theology, and even the most venerated earthly
mountain was no more than the footstool of God (cp
Ps. 995 1327). Jewish ascetics naturally resorted to
the desert. as the region where conimunings with another
world would be most attainable (cp J O H N THE BAPTIST.
It was possible there to reduce the claims of
I).
fleshly nature to the utmost; there, too, mysterious
oracular voices might be heard (see col. 3882,with n. 2 ) ;
there, too, the moral athlete might prove his spiritual
weapons in conflict with the Evil One. Whether the
‘ forty days ’ were, according to the earliest form of the
narrative. really forty days of temptation may be doubted.
The Lenten fast of forty days might naturally exert a
modifying influence on the original tradition, which
surely must have said that Jesus, as the second Moses
and the second Elijah,5 communed with God for forty
davs before he underwent the sorest attack of the Evii
1 According to Rhys Davids (Buddhism,36, SPCK), ‘the
very thoughts passing through the mind of Gautama appear in
gorgeous descriptions as angels of darkness or of light. Unable
to express the struggles of his son1 in any other wan they repre-
sent him as sitting sublime calm and serene during violent
attacks made upon him b;a wkked visible tempter and his
wicked angels, armed by all kinds of weapons.’ We must not
however imagine that the Temptation of Gautama is of purel;
psycholdgical origin. Even here the first germs are evidently
mythological (see Darmesteter).
2 The fondness for references to mountains in Jewish eschato-
lo ical literature also has its roots in mythology.
8 See Nestle, NT Gr. Supplementum, 77, and cp TAROR, s 5.
4 There is evidence suggesting that the early tradition placed
it in the Jerahmeelite Negeb (see PARADISE, g 11, with n. 6).
5 On the genesis of the ‘forty days’ in the Moses and Elijah
story, cp MOSES, $ 11.
49%
 TEMPTATION OF JESUS
0 n e . l Just so, Zarathustra is said to have beheld seven
visions of Ormazd and the archangels before meeting
the combined attack of the powers of e v L 2 It may
well be that in the original Temptation of Jesus, as in
that of Zarathustra, the efforts of the tempter were made
to centre in the’one object of drawing the Saviour away
t o a false ideal of success. Analogy favours the view
that this, like other stories of the same class, grew, and
by the belief that it grew our appreciation of the final
perfected form is increased rather than diminished.
One serious difficulty, however, remains. T h e short
account in Mk. runs-
‘And he was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan ;
and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered
unto him’ (Mk. 1 1 3 ) ~
T o suppose that this account merely sums u p a fuller
narrative, such as Mt.‘s, is scarcely admissible. It
consists of three clauses, and it is only the first and
the third which can be represented as the skeleton
of the vivid narrative known t o Mt. and Lk. ‘He
was with the wild beasts’ ( $ Y fi(~r2tr&v 0qpLwv)-
clearly there is something more than picturesque realism
here, and the duty of the critic is not performed by
referring to Is. 306, z Macc. 527. W e seem to have
here a fragment of another separate narrative, attached
to the beginning of Jesus’ career, the trials described
in which were those incident to initiation into mysteries,
or (in Egypt) to the passage of the soul t o the Islands
of the Blest.3 J. M. Robertson is inclined to account
in this way for the tempter’s invitation to Jesus to grasp
at food before the appointed time. ‘ W e know that
among the trials of the later Mithraic initiations were
those of hunger and thirst ; and as the adversary, the
tempter, is a capital figure in all stages of the Mazdean
system, it would be almost a matter of course that the
initiate should figure as being tempted by him to break
down in the probation.’ I t would certainly not be
extraordinary that some echo of these mysteries should
have made its way into the Christian community, con-
sidering how close was the struggle between Christianity
a n d Mithraism (the successor and supplanter of Mazda-
worship) at a later period. Nor have we even thus
exhausted critical possibilities. Considering that ability
to vanquish demons was regarded as one of the most
essential gifts of the Messiah (cp Mk. 3), it is not sur-
prising if a n attempt was made by early Christians to
connect the temptation-story with this widely-spread
view of the messianic office. T h e discussion in 8 8-11
will not, indeed, supersede the mythological theory,
but it may help us to realise the popular theories which
may possibly have been based at an early time on the
narrative of the temptation. T. K. C.
On the literary criticism of the synoptic narratives, besides the
relevant sections in critical editions of the synoptic gospels and
in the various biographies of Jesus see von
16. Literature. Engelhardt, De tenfatione /es: (1858)
Hiinefeld, Die YersuchungsReschiclrj
( ~ 8 8 0 ) ;N . Schmidt, St.Kr., 1889, p. 443f:; Wendt’s Lehrc
/esu(ET, 1 rorf: 395); W. Honig, Dieversuchungsgeschichte
(Protest. Monafskefte, 1900, 331 f: 382 f:); and B. W.Bacon
Bidl. World, Jan. i g w , pp. 18-25 ;also Ullmann’s Szi:nrZlosigkeii
Jesu (ET 123.144 265-291 [r870J)’ Trench’s Studies in Gospels
1-65 (186;); Ecce Hoino (ch. 2): Campbell’s Crit. Studies ii
Luke, 16-28 (1891) ; A. E. Garvie, Ex#. T 10 3 0 1 3 3 5 6 s 419f:
453< 509J); W. W. Peyton, Ex+-., thirdser. 9369-3 I , fourth
ser. 2 360-378 439’454 4223-236 340-360 ; and W. B. €811. Bibl.
World 11 28-36 ; further, o n the metaphysical problem Bruce
Huiniiiation of Christ (3)(1889), 236-288 ; and Fairbairi, C h r d
i s Mod. Theology, 348-353 (1893). A crude literalism dominates
essays like Nebe’s Der Versuch des H e m cine iiussere That-
sache (1857) and F. Nerling’s ‘Die Versuchung Jesn Cbristi
des Sohnes bottes, durch Satanas in der Wuste’ (Mittheil. ,n3
A’uhrichten jiiv die ma-. Kirche in Russlaud, 32 49-104) ; cp
1 Keim unites the two views of the forty days. ‘ He stands
like Moses on Sinai in still converse with God, by whose word
he lives, but he is, at the same time, put to the test by Satan ;
and it is this side of his sojourn which has been most industri-
ouslyportrayed ’ (/esus of Nazara, E T 2 305). The synoptics,
however, only speak of his being tempted of the devil.
2 Williams Jackson, Zoroaster, 50f:
3 Masp. Dawn of Civ. 184f:
4 Christianity and Myfhology, 354.
4967
TENT
A. D. Kurrikoff (ihid. 1895, pp. 289-307 395.417). [Add-
published since the above article was written-Garvie, Exjos.
June 1g0z ; Hilgenfeld Z W f , IWZ, pp. 289.302. Denney,
Death ofChrist (rpz), ;6-18 ; and J. Halevy, A’evue’Sdmitiquc
(Jan.,,~p*), p. 13 f:; also, for rabbinic parallels on Satan
tempting Abrarn, Moses, and Israel, GfrBrer’s fahrhimdert d.
HeiZs, 2 37gf::I
J. MO. (§§ 1-7,15) ; T. K . c. ($5 12-14).
TENT. T h e tent, as a place of abode or shelter,
a m e a r s to st’and midwav between the tree and the
circular hut. T h e tree, with its
1. . canonv of branch and brushwood.
I ,
would suggest to nomad tribes the use of the tree-trunk
or pole, around which would be hung the skins of
animals caught in the chase, whilst settled races would
prepare a more lasting shelter by the erection, o n a
similar plan, of round (or nearly round) dome-shaped
buildings of straw and clay. A later development of
this would be the construction of round buildings with
perpendicular walls, and sloping, not conical roof.
For these stages cp Montelius, cited by 0.Schrader, Zndo;
german. Altertua. 339f:, and J. H. Middleton, art. ‘Templum
in Smith‘s Dict. CZass. Ant. 2 7736 (‘ the round shape was the
earlier form for a god‘s house, just as the circular hut, built
round a central pole, is the early architecture for a human
habitation’). It IS not denied, however, that oval or oblong
buildings are very old, and although there are indications that
the Indo-Germanic races, for example, passed through the
‘ round-hut ’ stage (Schrader, g81f:), it cannot be proved,
although it may plausibly be inferred that they were originally
tent-dwellers. To proceed farther aiong this line, and to sug-
gest that from the cave has arisen first the rock-hewn chamber
and then the rectangular abode, isa hypothesis not yet sufficiently
warranted bv the evidence.1 At all events. there is reason to
suppose that the ortico or gateway in frokt of the Egyptian
house for erampE has evolved from a previous ractice of
building some kind’of structure before the month opa cavern.
Cp ORACLE, 3.
It is unfortunate that the exact age of the circular dome-
shaped bee-hive buildings in the Sinaitic peninsula which are
described by Palmer (Desert of the Exodus 139 169, 317,
etc.). is unknown.2 At all events there is nd soiifi&nd for
the old theory (based on Lev. 23 43) that they were o n c occupied
by the children of Israel during their wanderings in the wilder-
ness. Some of them (at least) appear to have been used as tombs
by monks a use to which they are occasionallyput at the resent
day, and h i s supports Mr. F.C. Burkitt’ssuggestiynthat tKe term
applied to them, nawdmis, is not from ndmiis, mosquito,’ but
is an evident oral corruption of nawdwis, plural of nri’gs, which
is ultimately derised from v&r (Syr. nausd), “temple,” but is
used for “cemetery,” and apparently for the Parsee towers of
silence-in fact for any non-Mohammedan kind of burial-place
(private communication).
T h e characteristic Hebrew term for the tent is thel
( i p k , U K ~ Y[BAL]),
~ occasionally rendered TABEII-
NACLE (g.v., 5 I ). I t has been connected 3 with the
Ass. d u , ’settlement, city‘ (in contrast with mabdzu,
‘fortified place ’) ; but the relationship is doubted by
Noldeke (ZDA1G 40720 [1886]), who also questions the
identity of the Hebrew word with the S. Sem. aAZ (op.
cit. 154, n. I ) . ~ On the other hand, i h d , like b d y i U
(see H OUSE , 5 I ) , may refer not only t o the dwelling,
but also to its occupants; c p P s . 8 3 7 [ 6 ] ’tents of
E d o m ’ (11 Ishmaelites), 1205 tents of Kedar‘ (cp
v. 66 ‘ those who hate peace’),6 and for this reason it
has been considered probable that the last two letters of
O&K in I Ch. 441, and that n j p of~ z Ch. 1414[15], are
corruptions of tribal names6
]?$a,
‘ Tent ’ is also the rendering of mis;biin, Cant. 1 8 and
(11 h) Nu.245 Jer.3018; of sukkah, npD (‘booth’) in 2s.
1111, see PAVILION (I), TABERNACLE, 8 I ; and of Kubbak,
739,Nu. 258, see PAVILION (z), and $ 4 below. BrfyW, too, is
used of a tent 7 in Gen. 2’7 15 33 17 u),
and is thus rendered also
1 For cave- or underground dwellings among Semitic peoples,
cp Now. H A 1r35f: (E. of Jordan, Petra), and Landberg,
L’Avadie MLriZionaZe, 1159 ( S . Arabia).
2 See KIBROTH-HATTAAVAH, NEGEB, $j 6.
3 E.g., by Fr. Delitzsch (Prol. 105), Sayce ( TTBA i. 2 305).
4 NSldeke compares Syr. yahla, ‘troop, tribe. From the S.
Semitic comes also the cognate Nab. $N, found in two inscrip-
tions from HaurBn (CIS 2 164f:).
5 Not to‘be coyected into i& ~ K J P‘haters ~ of the Salmu
( i e . , Salamaxns) as the emendation In Cant. 1 5 (see We.
Pr0Z.P) 218 n. I ) might suggest.
6 Cp Wi.” Mu+,’ etc. MYG, 1898,148fl, and see ZERAH.
7 Cp, perhaps, the gloss in Hesychius : pair? = tent of skin.
4968
 TENT 1 TENT
by R V in 2K. 23 7 (but see DRBQS$ 8 col. 1140). Conversely,
&/lei seems to refer to the palaces'of fsrael's neighbours in Ps.
84 I O (11) Job 21 28.
O n the use of Zhihrl in Sabrean and Phienician proper names,
see AHOLIBAMAH, O HOLAH , OHOLIBAH.
Originally the Hebrews, like the Arabs,2 were essenti-
ally a tent-living people, and in one of their legendary
2. Tent-life genealogies they enumerate among their
ancestors Jabal, the father of tent-dwellers
ip Israel. and herdsmen, thus recognising their
nomadic origin (Gen. 420, cp Heb. 119, and see C AIN -
ITES, C A TT L E , § I ). T h e tent-dweller, if he follows an
honest calling, is eijsentially a herdsman, and it is not
until he has become at least an agriculturist-the two
types are represented in Abcl and Cain respectively-
that he will begin to think of replacing the tent by a
shelter of a more substantial ~ h a r a c t e r . ~
The Canaanites among whom the Hebrews settled
were house-dwellers (cp Nu. 1319 28 Dt. 1 2 8 35, and see
C ITY, $ I ) , and that the immigrants in time followed
their example, is only to be expected, and is presup-
posed in the (later) law Dt.228 (cp H OUSE , § I).
Still, it is noteworthy that outside help was desirable,
if not actually necessary, and for the building of his
temple Solomon was obliged to invoke the aid of the
more expert Phenicians (see H IRAM , I ) , just as Arabian
tradition relates that for the erection of the Ka'ba
Coptic, Persian, or Roman workmen were called in
(Fraenkel, op. cit. 4.).
In this connection it is interesting to note, that the Arabic
word for ' roof' (zpi.r)is of Aramaic, and ultimately, perhaps,
of Assyrian origin (Fraenkel, 5, Muss-Amok, Ass. Did. I&),
and that the Hebrew synonym @g is of unknown etymology,
and does not appear to be Semltlc. Similarly, the derivation
of the Heh. 'iv,Kir, dilefh, &ur (in mibsdr, etc.), and 424 all
of which presuppose town-life, are quite obscure.
Long after the s.ettlement, the Hebrews retained in
their language traces of their earlier mode of living.
Wealth and cattle ( n j m ) are identical
analogy supports the inference that the agriculturists were
alniost wholly house-dwellers (however mean their abode
may have been : see H OUSE ), yet to a certain extent
these still retained the earlier custom of dwelling in
tents, whether it was during the ingathering of the
vintage (See T ABERNACLES , F E A S T OF) O r for Comfort
1 [Che. Ps.P) conterlds that in a number of passaqes (Ps. 15 I
19 5 27 5/: 61 5 69 26 'if16084 I r ) $nu is miswritten f& 537n.I
2 Cp Gen. 57 zg Judg. 8 1 1 (where Tg. actually has v~xqyfor
p $ n u i '31~0) Ps. 836 (7) I Ch. 5 IO. As an examination of the
terms appears to show, the Arabs learned the art of building from
the Aramreans (Fraenkel, Aram. Fvemdw. I#). The older
-civilisation of the Minaeans and Sabaeans of the S. of Arabia
does not come under cmsideration here.
3 On the gradual settling of the Hebrews, cp Buhl, Die
socialen VerhAlfnisse d. fsvaeiiten, 1 3 8 (Berlin 1899).
4 Cp also perhaps, Syr. wmrhz(2, and see CATILE,p 8 (end).
4969
during the summer, or from religious principle (see
RECHABITES).~ See below, 5 4.
On the ease with which the people will pass from
house to tent-life see P e r X h i p . Avt in CiL7Zd. 1199.
T o understand this we must realise the deeply-rooted
preference which all Bedouins have for their tent.% It is
still the practice to the E. of the Jordan for the poplila-
tion of such towns even as es-Salt. and Kerak, to pitch
their tents in the country during the summer. The same
holds good of the peasantry of S. Palestine, and was no
doubt usual in ancient times (Thornson, Land andBook,
296). Another practice, Schumacher remarks, is for
the fell,?hin of the JaulRn to build a hut of branches or
reeds3 upon the roofs of their houses (Jaulin, 43). C p
also BED, $ I : H OUSE , 5 3 ; HUT.
As a n instance of the modification of the tent by a more settled
folk, the usage of the Turcomans, NW. of Aleppo, is of interest.
According to Burckhardt (Tranels in Syria 636. London,
1822)) the dwellings consist of ohlong walls A f ahgut 4 ft. in
height. These are made of loose stones, and the whole is
covered over with a black cloth of goat's hair elevated by
twelve or more posts, about 8 ft. high, in the tkddle of the
enclosure. A stone partition near the entrance bars off the
women's apartment from that of the men. Many of the people
however, live in large huts 15 ft. high, which look like tent:
but have roofs of rushes. As a further adaptation may he
noticed thejourt or tent of the Kirghiz in Central Asia, ' con-
sisting of a wooden frame for sides radiating ribs for roof and a
wooden door. .. . Over this frakework a heavy covehng of
felt is throwp, which is either weighed down with stones or,
when necessary, stitched together.'d From this it is possible to
gain some idea of the construction of the Israelite tabernacle as
it existed in the nrind of the priestly writers. See further
TABERNACLE, 0 I O .
The well-knoyn retention of ancient customs in the
East being admitted, our conception of the tent of the
Hebrews must be based upon our know--
3.
ledge of its construction among the
Bedouins of the present day,5 supplemented by the un-
fortunately small number of representations of tents
upon the Assyrian sculptures, and illustrated by the
scanty details in the OT. The sculptures furnish ns
with illustrations of the royal pavilion which acconi-
panied Sennacherib a t the siege of Lachish,6 and from
1 Cp Bu. <The Nomadic Ideal in the OT' (flew Wor(d.
18951.~
2 Cp v. Oppenheim Mitfelmeerz. Pers. Golf; 2 50.
3 Called *urishi; c i below, col. 4973, n. 2.
4 Ency. Brif.P)'Tent,' 23 1 8 3 ~ . The tent of Shiloh accord-
ing to Rabbinical writers, was also supposed to be a whled en-
closure, covered over with curtains.
5 Among the descriptions of the various travellers in the East,
Burckhardt, and more especially Doughty, have heen drawn
upon niost frequently in this section.
6 Cp also the pavilion portrayed upon the bronze gate of
Balawnt (expedition against Carchemish). For other royal
tents, cp Per.-Chip. A r f in C h i d . 1175 193.
4970
 TENT
the same source there is preserved, fortunately, a plan
of the Assyrian camp, in which are depicted both the
royal pavilion and tents of a less luxurious description
(fig. I ) . In addition to this, iipon the sculptures
representing ASur-bani-pal's expcdition against the
Arabians (KO 2217 I. 122). there are interesting
portrayals of the tents of the enemy (fig. 2). In
the uppermost panel. the tent-dwellers are seen peace-
fully working ; below, is depicted the hand-to-hand
conflict with the Assyrians ; and, finally, the Arabians
are overpowered and killed, and the burning tents are on
the point of collapse. T h e representation is extremely
vivid. The framework of the tents appears to consist of
anupright branch from the middle of whichotherbranches
FIG. 2.-Arabian tents. Brit. Mus. Assyrian saloon.
project, and the general appearance, it will be seen,
is markedly inferior to that in Sennacheribs camp.'
The Assyrians, like the Egyptians, were especially a house-
dwelling people. But according to De Morgan (Recherches sur
Zes Oricines de I'&gyfife, 66,?, Paris, 1897 ; cp Budge, Hist.
of Egypt, 142 56 102 : London, i p ) , the earlier inhabitants of
Egypt lived in booths of rush and reed, and the art of brick-
making (see B RICK) was introduced probably from Chaldza.
As regards the Assyrians, the theory that they, too, once dwelt
in tents or booths, can at present be supported only by the fact
that they were in the custom of erecting a tent upon the flat
house-roof(Per.-Chip., A r t in Chald. 1197,cp above, 5 2 , end), a
practice which might lead to the erection of the so-called 'upper-
chamber ' (found also in Egypt, e g . , Wilk. Anc. Eg. 1352)) and
of the rounded tops, domes, or sugar-loaf roots of Mesopotamia
(cp A r t in Chard. 1 128 145 165J). May we also point to the
general lack of windows?
The nomad tent ( h q m ,Doughty, Ar. Des. 1 2 2 4 ) is
made of black worsted or hair-cloth, or of sheep's wool
mingled with the hair of goats and camels.2 Tents of
linen were, and still are, used only occasionally for
holiday or travelling purposes, by those who do not
habitually live in them (Kitto, Ridl. Cycl. art. Tent,' cp
Doughty, 2356). The Bedouins of the J a u k n according
to Schumacher (faulan, 54J)do not make the plaited
goat-hair tent-cloths themselves, but buy them from
certain tribes and gipsies (Nuuw&r),who for the most
part drive a regular trade in t h i s 3 T h e skeleton con-
sists of a number of tent-poles ( ' a m d i n , ' o ~ i r n i d ) , ~anartment.'
varying in number from three to nine according t o the
size of the tent, which are kept in position by cords
(yLi'her, mithir [cp CORD], mod. funud or ha61 [Eg.])
attached to stakes or pegs (y&t/zZd,mod. w ~ t e d ) . ~
1 Cp also Layard Ninevek and its Remains, 2 271 (London,
1849)~and Per.-Chib. A r t in ChaZd. 1330.
2 Hence the mod. name gait &'v, 6. w d a r : for the material,
cp also Ex. 25 26 36 14, T ABERNACLE , Q 4 8 , S ACKCLOTH, 8 I n.
3 Tent-making, the trade followed by Pad, was no doubt a
lucrative profession. The Pesh., however, in Acts 18 3 reads
j&&, saddle-makers,' (=ZorariusP), whence it has been
suggested that UKnvOTOl6F is an error for $vronor6r. See further,
C I L I C I A PAUL, 5 5, SACKCLOTH and cp SHIP 8 8 n.
4 Forla collection of other mod. terms in us; see Oppenheim,
&'om Miffebieerz.Pers. Golf; vol. 2, facing 44.
4 The Hebrew phrase for ' to pitch a tent ' ( 5 7 ~ ns
7 ypn, Gen.
497'
TENT
Over the poles are stretched the coverirgs of skin or
rag (y2~i'iL/z, cp A ZUBAH ), and around the sides is hung
a long cloth, an open space being left at one side for
light and ventilation.' Inside the larger tents, a hanging,
commonly not more than breast or neck-high, separates
the smaller and inner apartment (&&ut, rna+rarn) for
the women (who rarely have their own tent, cp 4
below). from the larger, and commonly open division,
which is used as a reception and general living room
( n ~ n & ' a d ) . When
~ there is a triple division, and this is
rare (cp Doughty, 2285), the extra room is used for
servants and cattle. The tents average 20-25 feet in
length (though sometimes reaching as much as 40 feet) ;
they are about 8-10 feet high, and usually oblong in
shape; round tents are mentioned in the old Arabian
and a few traces have been found at the present
day near Teima (Doughty, 1284f: ) ; but with these
exceptions, they are used only by Turkish officials and
travellers.
The Arabs usually wander in f e r j i n , or nomad
hamlets, according to their kiudreds,& accompanied
perhaps by some poor unprotected followers. The
collection of tents forms the menziI;5 if few, they may
be arranged in a circle or semicircle,6 but usage varies,
and not unfrequently a tribe may be identified at a
distance by the arrangement a d ~ p t e d . ~Zarebas, en-
campments surrounded with a stone wall, are vouched
for in the desert of Pharan (Nowack, H A 137), but are
not common.
The sheikh's tent is naturally the most important,
though not necessarily, therefore, the most luxurious."
It is usually placed in the most prominent position, and
will often face the direction from which travellers may
be expected to arrive (cp Gen. 181j;). T o it repair
the desert wanderers (&~7f Allah, God's guests I ) ,
who find therein a sanctuary and can claim protection
for two nights and a day.g The ra@a ( ' migration ') is
agreed upon the previous day by common assent or may
rest with the Sheikh. Should his tent remain standing
a n hour past sunrise, it is known that the camp will not
move that day (Doughty, 1216). Naturally the proximity
of trees and wells (cp Gen. 184) is songht for in selecting
a fresh m e n d .
To the women falls the duty oferecting and taking down the
tents IDouehtv. 1216). It is in their aDartment that the Eoods
and chattds e; stoied though these it is true, are fgw in
number (Doughty 1 2 1 i 2 2 7 ) . Some dmps of rock-salt, a few
lengths of cloth aAd patches of leather, a box for the feminine
vanities, the great brazen pot, a lamp and a dozen minor
utensils will form the average equipmedt (Doughty, 1227, cp
HOUSE,S 6 and references).
Nowhere do we find such conservatism of ancient
31 25 Jer. 6 3) really contains a reference to the hammering
(yon) of the tent-peg.
1 This is the only door, in the proper sense of the word ; sel:
D OOR. Contrast Gen. 18 I,? the entrance (#&ha&)of the tent
and 19 7 the door (diZefh) of the city-house (6dyifA: cp ZI. 8:
where mention is made of the beam karirrih). Cp Jer. 49 31, the
Arabians who have neither 'doors do; bars.'
2 Doughty (Ar. Des. 1227) well says: 'Tent is the Semitic
house: their clav house is built in like manner. a Dublic hall
for the men and- guests, and an inner wonian's knd- household
-3 The tents in the illustrations from the monuments (above)
are also probably round.
4 Cp P's conception of the camp of Israel in the wilderness
(Nu. 1 j z , etc.). In modern times the size of a tribe is frequently
reckoned by the number of tents; for examples, see Merrill.
East of the fordan, 47:.
6 From Ar. nazala to dwel1,'perhaps originally ' t o unload.'
Cp in Syr. ma&rifAirri3' camp,' from $&a, 'to loosen' (unload).
See Fraenkel, op. c i f . 3, n. I.
6 C the AI. name &war, and the Heb. ( i r i h : see C A M P ,
5 I ; EATTLE, $ I ; NEGKB, 8 6.
7 Cp CAMP,# I. Thus the tents may be arranged in the shape
of a triangle, rectangle, in one long liiir, or in two parallel lines
(Conder, Tent W o r k in Palcstinc, 2 275f:) ; for square-shaped
encampments, cp Robinson, Bi? 2 180 207 and for oval, ib. 201.
8 Rich and elaborate tents are more'characteristic of the
Persians, cp Judith 1021.
Q Doughty, 1 2 2 8 , cp WRS, Kinshij, 41f: zjg, and see
S TRANGER A N D S O J OURNER , 8 5.
4972
 TENTH DEAL
customs as in matters outside everyday . - life, and in the
case of the tent this is particularly
4,
Tent in illustrated in certain religious festivals
marriage and (cp above, 2),and in marriage cere-
monies. It has not escaped notice
that in a few cases in the OT the tent appears to be the
property of the wife ( e . g . , Jael, Judg. 47 ; Sarah, Gen.
2426; Jacob’s wives, 3133f.), and in this Robertson
Smith recognised the survival of an earlier stage of
society (still found in various phases aniong some com-
munities) where the woman possesses her own tent, into
which she receives her husband, and in which, though
married, she retains perfect independence (the so-called
bema marriage). In later ages, when marriage entails
the loss of her independence, and the woman belongs
to the man, the importance of the tent is retained in a
variety of ways : thus, notably, the Arab still erects a
special hut or tent for his wife on the first night of
marriage, although it is otherwise unusual for the woman
to possess a separate dwelling (Kinship, 167).
The erection of this tent for the consummation of the marriage
illustrates z S. 1622 (tC, not a,tent as in AV); such a bridal
chamber may well have been called $uj&Zh, a?? (cp Joel 2 16
[where the 1 I $&der is used of a bridegroom, as also is $uj@h
itself in Ps. 195 [6]).1 According to Robertson Smith (Kinsh@,
168 291) the ‘Pres or bridal bed $ q a t . 1 16) was also primarily idol (cp Gen. 31 19 with n. 30, ‘my god ’ ; also 352 4).
booth; cp AI. ‘irris, ‘thicket, arrma ‘ to make a booth
(esp with a view to marriage), ‘anis, ‘hdegoom,’ and ‘in,
‘wife,’z but this is doubted by Budde, Ftinf MegiZhf, on
cant. Z.C.
Allusion has already been made to the circular and
tent-like shape of the earliest temples in the classical
world (I I). and although there do not appear to be
actual records of the use of tents as temples, at least
Orestes had his sacred booths (Paus. ii. 31 6 ) , and
temporary booths were not nnfrequently erected in
sacred precincts (Frazer, Paus. 2165f: 204). These ( 3 5 2 - 4 ) ; the meaning of the story (in E) plainly is that
usages remind us both of the tents and booths erected by
the Israelites on special religious festivals (Hos. 129, see
T ABERNACLES, FEASTOF), and of the temporary tents
in which dwelt the female -mourners over H ~ s e i n . ~ Budde) teraphim is coupled with divination as a type
Portable tents were also used as shrines on military
campaigns (WRS, ReZ. Sem. P) 37, cp Schwally, Semit.
Kriqqsalterth. 113), and the use of tents as sanctuaries
was familiar to the [sraelites long after the settlement in
Canaan. See further, T ABERNACLE, esp. 5 12.
S. A. C. 1 9 1 3 16) is spoken of as if it was a thing which would
TENTH DEAL (fiykg), E x . 2 9 4 0 AV, RV ‘tenth
part [of an ephah].’ See WEIGHTS A N D M EASURES ,
5 3 (s.w. ‘ onier ’).
TEPHON (TE@ON [A]), rMacc.950 RV, AV
TAPHON (9.Z.).
TERAH (n?q, eap& [BADEL]; AD sometimes
eappa ; Thnre), the father of Abraham (Gen. 1 1 2 4 f l
Josh. 242 I Ch. 126 Lk. 334). Tradition described him
variously as the son, and a s the brother, of Nahor. P
represents him as migrating from ‘ Ur K q d i m ’ (see
UR OF THE CHALDEES) to ‘ Haran’ (Gen. 1131). To
understand ’ Terah,’ we must, first of all, havea definite
view as to the meaning of ‘ Abraham ’ and ‘ Haran.‘
(I) There is some probability in Winckler’s theory ( G I 2 24 n. I )
that mn is an intentional distortion of n?; Cyera&)=Ass. arhu,
originally ‘the beginning of a moon.’ Ur Kqdim, whence
-.
1 Another word is .bubhah (Nu. 258, see PAVILION 2) with
which cp the Ar. term &u66a ($ 3 above). BDB prefer ‘(Zimri’s)
princely tent,’ but the older vie; is better (see Ges. Tkes., Di.),
and is supported by the vulgar colloquial usage of the word in
bath MH and Ar. (cp Freytag). Note that the derivative ‘al-
cove’ itself, was used in Spanish to denote especially the recess
in a chamber for the bed.
a Add, too the ‘ari.rhi(col. 4970>n. 3 above). The stem is to
he kept distiict from Ass. rriSir, ‘bridegroom,’which corresponds
to Hehr. 2r2i(oyx), ‘to espouse,’lit. ‘paythe price.’ Theoriginal
meaning of V l x is uncertain.
3 As Eerdmans has shown, the rite has traces of the Tammuz-
cult (ZA 9 so)); cp also V. Kremer, Stud. Z. oergleich. Cultur.
gcsch. 159 (Vienna, 1B90).
4 The Kdha appears to have been evolved from a tent (Wellh.
I f d .(2) 73).
4973
TERAPHIM
T e d came was (as is commonly held) the S. Babylonian city
of Uru, wdich was the seat of the moon-cultus. Harran
(=Haran, where Terah died) was the other great centre’of the
same cultus (see HARAN). This must be taken in connection
with the theory of Winckler and Stucken as to the mythological
character of Abraham and Sarah (cp SARAH). (2) Another
view however may deserve to be mentioned. There is strong
reasdn to thin; that Abraham is the hero of the Jerahmeelites,
a s Israel (cp Sarah) is the hero of the Israelites, and that his
original seat (i.e., that of the Jerahmeelites) was, traditionally,
in the southern Harin. Terahs close connection with Haran
and Nahor (=Haran?), suggests that he is a double of Abraham,
and that his name is a corrupted fragment of Jaahmeel.
Possibly for ‘corrupted’ we should rather say ‘altered. P,
or his authority, may, as Winckler (see above) remarks, have
had a repugnance toa name which suggested moon-worship. (3)
Jensen’s comparison of N. Syrian (Hittite) proper names, like
Tarhular ( Z A 6 7 0 ; Hittiter, 153), leads to the meagre result
that Terah “lay have been a divine name. T. K. C.
TERAH (nlq), Nu33a7f: RV, AV TARAH (q.~.).
TERAPHIM (D’QyI, 6 in Gen. eiAwAa, Hist.
Books B e p + [ ~ ] r v , Bap., B r p a m r v , .+EL+ [exc. I S. 1523 Bepa-
mtav (B) 19 13 16 xcvoT&+La or raw.], Hos. 34 Gjhor [see below,
n. 21 Ezek. ?1 21 [a61 humra: Zech. 10 a drr+OeyydpfvoL ; Aq.
pop&+a,a, rrpoToFai &m. e&wha, &lhuurs, Ofpa+rrv, Theod.
Orpa+[e]rv, 2mAvdpvos) ; AV (followir!g Vg.) sometimes tran-
scribes, sometimes translates ‘image, ‘idols,’ idolatry ; RV
more consistently adopts ‘ teraphim’ throughout.
T h e name appears to designate a particular kind of
Of the form of these images we learn nothing from
the scanty notices in the O T ; we cannot certainly infer
from the fact that Laban’s was concealed under a
camel saddle that it was small, nor from the use which
Michal makes of David‘s (I S.191316) that it vias of
the size or shape of a man. Laban’s teraphim (his
god) was stolen by Rachel (Gen. 31), but with other
foreign gods and heathenish amulets, was put away by
Jacob before he went to worship Yahwh at Bethel
the teraphim were relics of Aramzean paganism which
Israel cast off to serve Yahwk alone (cp Josh. 24 15) ;
see also I S . 1523, where in a prophetic passage (E,
of sin most hateful to God, and 2 K. 2 3 2 4 ( R p ) .
Micah had an ephod and teraphim in his shrine, which
were carried off by the Danites to their new settlement
at the sources of the Jordan and placed in their sanctuary
(Judg. 1 7 5 18). T h e teraphim in David’s house ( I S.
be found in every household. I n the eighth century
Hosea joins the ephod and teraphim2 with sacrifices
and masSCbahs as essential to the religious observances
of his people; in their absence religion would cease
( Hos. 3 4).
Like the ephod, with which they are associated (in
Judg. and Hos.), the teraphim were employed or con-
sulted in divination ( z K. 2 3 2 4 Ezek. 21 z1[26] Zech. 102).
Ezekiel, in the passage cited, represents the Babylonian
king as divining by shaking arrows (belomancy ; see
U R I M A N D THUMMIM), inquiring of the teraphim,
examining the entrails of a sacrifice (e.z.?ispicium) ; cp
also I S. 1523, where divination (nap, sovtilegium) is
connected in a similar way with the teraphim. It is
not clear, however, that the teraphim were consulted by
the lot ; Ezekiel seems to distinguish the two. Spencer’s
theory that the teraphim were small images (figurines),
perhaps of human form, the heathen counterpart of the
Urim, has no substantial foundation. Other scholars
have inferred from Gen. 31 19 30-35 Judg. 1 7 5 j? I S.
19 13 16,that the teraphim were household gods (penates,
a Lapide; Seb. Schmid, Vitringa. Ew., Eerdmans, etc.);
more specifically, images of the ancestors, so that the
consultation of the teraphim was a kind of manes oracle
( E . Meier, Stade, Schwally, etc. ). Thelatter hypothesis
rests upon questionable anthropological or etymological
Read o m n pp.
2 It is to be observed that has Gfjhoi, elsewhere used to
render p y i x ,
3 See U R I M AND T A U M M I M .
4974
 TEREBINTH
assumptions ; other passages are hardly compatible
with the theory that the teraphim were solely domestic
idols (see Hos. 3 4 Ezek. 21 ZI [z6] Zech. 102 2 K. 2324).
The etymology and meaning of the word are unknown ; for
various conjectures see Ges. Thes. 1519f: Moore Judges, 381f:
cp also I. GW, in 1VZKM 10136; thdse who’think that the
teraphim were images of the ancestors connect the name with
~ (Neubauer Sayce Klo., Schwally). The opinions of
p ~ y
cwish writersadout the’nature of the teraphim may be found
y the cunous in Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. 2 6 & 3 ’ Be er Addita-
menta to Selden, synt. ii. chap. 1. The most r;marradle is that
the teraphim was a niummied human head (Jer. Targ. Gen.
31 ‘9 etc.) ; with which cp the stories of this kind of divination
amoig the Harranians, Chwolsohn, Ssa6ier, 2 1 9 3 388J 15?fi
Litevature.-Jerome, E). 29, De Ephod et Theraphmz ;
Selden, De dis Syris, synt. 1 chap. 2, with Beyer’s Addita-
menta ; Spencer, De Zegihs n’tualibus, bk. 3 chap. 7 ; Pfeiffer,
Exerritafiones biblice, 4 ; van Dale, Dc divinationibus
idolatricis, chap. 11 (against Spencer) ; Ewald, ALterthlimev,
296-299 ; Scholz, G o t d i e m t und Zau6cnuesen, 127 fl.
Stade, G V I 1467; Schwally, Leben nnch &m Tode, 35
i countries is only a shrub, attains in Syria the proportions
Moore,Ju&es, 3 7 9 3 ; T. C. Foote,/BL 21
also IDOLATRY, and cp ESCHATOLOGY, $ 4 .
(I-).
G. F. M.
& of ‘ a noble umbrageous tree,’ 2 0 to 40 ft. or more in
TEREBINTH. The four forms i l h , .&/a, iligs
allah,iih, &in, and jib!, aZZgn, are evidently closely con-
nected in origin. O‘kti, ElZm, or &!, Zinz,
:Elw is best regarded as plur. of h, Zlrih, or per-
haps of the masculine form $ 9 ~(occurring only
in the proper name ]?ti? !?N) from which 2>K is the nomen
unitatis. ElZh and ilon are usually taken to ether as= ‘tere-
binth,’ a M h and all& as=‘oak’ ; though Eelsius (Hierob.
1 3 4 3 ) joins alZdh as ‘terebinth’ to IZrih and Ilon. The con-
nection of these words-at least of &, O’kpwith the divine
name $8, suggested by Wellhansen (ProZ. ET, 238) and Stade
(GI1455) is too vague to help towards identifying the tree
intended icp WRS, Rfl. Sem.P) 19aJ); the difficulty is in-
creased hy our uncertainty as to the original meaning of the
root $lN-according to others n5u-with which the words appear
to be connected. (See the literature cited in Geseniuslll under
h,and cp NAMES, 5 116.) On the other hand, the fact that
Aram. ilrind, which is in form exactly equivalent to &‘an means
‘a tree ’ in general, may suggest that the special s e d which
these words have acquired in Hebrew is derived from a more
general one-viz. that of trees par excelZenre-the large and
strong trees characteristic of the region. This view is supported
by the fact that the place Elim was apparently so called from
its palm trees (see ELin%), and the possible or (Moore) probable
identity (hut see DINAH) of the il?IT?@in Judg. 45 with the
nC$ j\bK of Gen. 358. Twice, however (Is. 6 13 Hos. 4 13),
dldh and aN8n are mentioned in the same verse as distinct trees.
And as a considerable body of tradition has identified 2l&k with
the terebinth(Celsius, Z.C.), and there is re eated mention of the
uZZ3nim of Bashan (Is. 2 13 Ezek. 276 fech. 11 2)) a district
famous for its oaks, it is reasonable to conclude that ZkiA and
allsn came to be used for these trees respectively. I t is doubtful
whether the distinction in pointing between P W and allHz and
between Plan and allan is more than an artificial creation of
later times.1 The occurrence in @ of vAa (I S. 21 10 [91) and
qAwv Uudg. 9 37 [Bl) may help to show which of the forms were
original.
The special associations of large trees like the oak
and the terebinth with the relieion of the Hebrews. as
o f other Semitic peoples,
a. R~WOUS with those been discussed by Baudissin
associations. have (Studien. 2184 K). Robertson Smith
(Rel. Sem.P) 18;fl). Stade (Gyl&~?), a n d others.
Such names as ZZ6n m@eh ( n p j j 9 ~ ) , ‘oak of the
teacher’ (Gen. 126 Dt. 1130). a n d ZZCs d‘8dnitim (ii5g
p.!jiy~), ‘ diviners’ oak’ (Judg. 937), point to their
having been early seats of prophetic oracles. The
custom of burial beneath the tree (Gen. 358 I Ch. 10 12)
is again an evidence of sacred association. O n the
appearance of the angel to Gideon beneath the a>! in
Ophrah, see Wellh. PYoZ., E T , 238. By the prophets
the association of worship with sacred trees was con-
demned as a departure from the spiritual ideal of
Israel‘s religion, and also o n account of the degrading
practices connected with it (Hos. 4 13 Ezek. 6 13 etc. ).
1 G. F. Moore goes farther, ‘There is no real foundation for
the discrimination ; the words signify in Aramaic ‘ I tree ” simply :
in Hebrewusually, ifnot exclusively “ hol tree “‘(note on Judg.
4 11). If so, however, the correctnesof tge text in I s 6 13 Hm.
4 13 will have to be disputed.
4975
TERESH
We proceed to notice briefly the occurrence of t h e
various words.
I . ?I& Zldh (Gen.354 Judg. 6 II 19 I S. 17 2 [@BAom.] 19
~~~om.I2lg[1oIzS.18gf:[~~Giv~povand~nz~. 14114 1K.1314
I Ch. 10 12 Is. 1 3 0 6 13 Ezek. 6 13 [@E om;]
3. References. Hos. 4 13 GivGpou WUKLi<OVTOS]t ; T C ~ E -
&3)rv@os in Ecclus. 24 16 ; the proper name
nke, Elath, Dt. 28 etc. is possibly the Same word) is in AV
rendered, ‘oak’ (RVmg. ‘terebinth’) except in the two places
where PSg, allan, is also present ; in Is. 6 13 AV has ‘ teil tree,’
and Has. 4 13 ‘ elms,’ while RV has ‘terebinth ’ and ‘ terebinths’
in these verses. @ renders six times by GpCs and thrice by
q+(p)rv@os ; besides these, twice in Judges B A L has 6p;s and
@B Tfp6fi(f3)rv@OS.l
As has been shown at length b y Celsius (Z.C.) t h e
meaning ‘ terebinth’ will suit all the passages where
d d h occurs. Pirtacia Terebinihus, L., which in some
height (Fl. and Hanh.P) 165). I t may thus constitute a
landmark. Robinson (BR3 15) describes one he saw
on the way from Hebron to Ramleh-such a tree as
we can imagine to have given the valley of Elah its
name. ‘ Here, in the broad valley, at the intersection
of the roads, stands a n immense Butm tree . . . t h e
largest we saw anywhere in Palestine, spreading its
boughs far a n d wide like a noble oak. ... The Butm
is not an evergreen . . . its small feathered lancet-
shaped leaves fall in the autumn and are renewed in
the spring. T h e flowers are small and followed b y
small oval berries, hanging in clusters from z to 5 in.
long, resembling much the clusters of the vine when the
grapes are just set.’ The abundant branching a n d
foliage of the terebinth agree with the references in
z S. 1893 14 Ecclus. 2416 ; the fact that it is neverthe-
less not an evergreen explains the simile in Is. 130.
2. h, ~ o s , 24 d ) can
a Z Z ~ J z ( ~ e p d p [ f 3 ] r Josh. , he only aslightly
divergent form of il>..,N ZZ& The tree intended in Josh. (Z.C.)
may be the same as that mentioned Gen. 35 4 Judg. 9 6 (@&Aavos),
where for AV, ‘plain,’ read ‘ oak’ or ‘terebinth.’
3. D’>w, 8Bm, or O h , IZim, the plur. of R>K or 5% (see
above) occurs Is. 129 57 5 61 3 and possibly Ezek. 31 14t. In
the first two places 6 has wrongly ai8wAaa, which is followed
by AV ‘idols’ in the second. I n the first passage ‘it is the
disappointingness ofnature-worshipwhich is indicated ’(Cheyne) ;
the same species of idolatry is referred to in 57 5. In Is. 61 3
(where Q5 interprets loosely pveaq we have a spiritual metaphor
drawn from the noble stature and luxuriant foliage of these
trees ; cp 60 21 and other passages. The word Op??! constitutes
a difficulty in Ezek. 31 14 ; its rendering rrpbs a h & formed no
part of the original Q5, according to some cursives (Field, ad
lor.), and the verse reads more smoothlyif, with Cornill, we
omit the word. [See Crit. Bib.]
4. p h , Zcin (in @ usually Gpik, Gen. 126 1318 1413 181
Dt. 11 30 Josh. 19 33 [cp @] Judg. 4 TI 9 6 37 I S.10 3t, wrongly
‘plain’ in AV), and (5) j \ h , allan (usually 6pOs or @&avos,
Geu. 35 8 Is. 2 13 [GCvSpov j3dlvwl 6 13 44 14 [om. @I Ezek 27 6
[ & + ~ T ~ WHos.413
U F ? ] Am.2gZech.llzt).
EZ8s and all& are slightly varying forms of the same
word, which had come to denote a particular large tree
distinct from n)!, El&, most probably the oak. Ac-
cording to Tristram2 ( N U B 3 6 8 8 ) there are three
species of Quercus which flourish in Palestine, the most
abundant being the evergreen Q. pseudo-coccz7ep.a;the
others are both deciduous species, Q. &giZopr a n d
Q. infeccto.ia. T h e first he describes as in appearance
much like our ‘holm oak,’ and h e speaks of one very
large tree of this species, the so-called ’ Abraham’s oak ’
near Hebron. The oak of k h a n he believes (follow-
ing Hooker) to be Q. BgiZOps. C p Anderlind in
ZDPV132zo$ On the oaks of Sharon, see SHARON.
N. M.-W. T. T.-D.
TERESH (en),eap[p]ac
a chamberlain of king Ahasuerus
(Esth. 221 62 om. BAL%?, [Kc.amg.]), calledin
1 For Ps. 29 g and Gen. 49 21 where Q5 compares Naphtali to
a C ~ A T O C LvcrfrCvov @e., np)w n>K, Di., etc), see H I ND,
NAPHTALI.
9 His statements are based upon the important paper by Sir
J. D. Hooker in Trans. Linn. SOC.23 381-387.
4976
 TERTIUS
Esth. 12 I , THARRA (Obpa [K*'id.]7 eeAeyToy [La]). 'Hippolytus
seventy' disciples by the Psecdu - Dorotheus
If the name must be Persian, we have a choice between
turf, ' dark, fierce' (Ges. Lex.(")),and tudatd. ' feared,'
the supposed original of Tirshatha (cp Marq. Fund.
70) ; Oppert (A?znuZ,csdephiZoos. chrltienne, jnnv. 1864),
however, compares l'iri-dates. the name of the governor
of Persepolis (temp. Alexander). But if underneath the
present Esther-story there is an earlier story, the scene of
which was not in Persia, but in the land of Jerahmeel
(N. Arabia), the only one of the above suggestions
which will serve us is the second, and the question is,
What is the origin of T I R S H A T H A ? But cp also
ZETHAR. T. K. C.
TERTIUS ( T E P T I O C ) , in the present text of the
Epistle to the Romans (1612). figures in the first
person as having a written ' the epistle (e+ TPPTLOE 6 of one quarter of a region. The title of tetrarch is
ypd$ar T+Y &riurcA?)v). As long as the authen-
ticity of the epistle is maintained it is impossible to
suggest a reason why Paul's amanuensis, while deliver-
ing the author's greetings in the usual manner in
m. 21 23, should thus abniptly have taken an independ-
ent course in v. az. True, I Cor. 1621 Col. 418 z Thess.
3 17 compared with Gal. 6 T I can be urged for the opinion
that Paul dictated his epistles : but so far as Rom. 1622
is concerned this does not lead to any further conclusion
than that an amanuensis had to be mentioned somewhere
in the pseud-epigraphon. In point of fact the appear-
ance of Tertius at this place belongs only to almost the
final form of the work. See R OMANS , 5 4,7, par. 3.
W. C. v. M.
Various conjectures have been made regarding Tertius 1. (..
Terentius) on the assumption of the authenticity of the epistle.
A favourite siiggestion is that he may have been one of those
Jeys whom Claudius had expelled from Rome. Under JUSTUS,
2, It has been suggested that he really is the Titius, or Titus,
Justus of Acts 187. Ityder (JBL xvii. 98 197) thinks of him
as an influential Roman Christian, and argues that Rorn
15-1Bzi is a letter or part of a letter from him to his friends
at Rome. It can hardly he disputed, however, that the argu-
ment for the separation of chaps. 15-16 from the rest of the
traditional epistle is stronger than that for their ascription to
Tertius. Cp S IMON the Cyrenian). I n the lists of the
TEXT AND VERSIONS
Tertius appears as bishop (according
and Pseudo.
to Dorotheus
the second bishop) of Iconium.
TERTULLUS (TEPTYAAOC [Ti. W H ] ) , , the rhTt6r
or orator who appeared for the prosecution against
Paul before Felix (Acts24IJ).
TESTAMENT ( A I A ~ H K H ) . Mt. 26 28 etc. See
C OVENANT , 5 7 ; also GALATIA, 21.
TESTIMONY (nqlp), Ex.1634. See A RK , 3.
Cp also WITKESS. On z K. 11 1 2 see B RACELETS , 5.
TETA (ATHTA [A]), I Esd. 528 AV)=Ezra242,
H ATITA (4.v. ).
TETRARCR (TETPAPXHC), the ruler of a tetrarchy
( T E T P & P X ~ & )that
, is, in the original sense of the word,
familiar from the N T as borne by certain princes of the
petty dynasties, which the Romans allowed to exercise
a dependent sovereignty within the province of Syria.
In this application it has lost its original precise sense,
and means only the ruler of part of a divided kingdom,
or of a region too narrow to support a higher title.
After the death of Herod the Great (4R .c.) his realm
was shared among his three sons : the chief part, in-
cluding Judwa. Samaria. and Idiima?a. fell to Archelaus
(Mt. 2m), with the title of ethnarch (see E T H N A R C H ) ;
Philip received the NE. of the realm, and was called
tetrarch ; and Galilee was given to Herod Antipas, who
bore the same title (Lk. 3 I ) . These three sovereignties
were reunited under Herod Agrippa from 41 to 44 A.D.
On the tetrarchy of Lysanias mentioned in Lk. 3 I see
A BILENE , L YSANIAS.
TETTER (?;?h, bohuk; A A ~ o c ) , a harmless eruption
of the skin (Lev. 1339+, AV ' freckled spot ').
'In Syria, at the present day, this disease is known by the
same name, 6 t a 9 , and it is recognised as not dangerous. It
takes the form of dull white or reddish spots on the skin of
unequal size, and hardly rising above the surface of the din.
The spots Pave no hright surface, and in time disappear of
themselves. SBOT, Leu. Eng., ad Zoc.

TEXT AND VERSIONS

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY (5 I). TEXTUAL CRITICISM (I 2).

I. N E W T E S T A M E N T
A . TEXT
Authorities (5 3). Westcott and Hurt's theory ($ 7). Re-Antiochian text (8 IO).
Chief MSS (0 4). The three texts ( 8 3). Conclusion of discussion (5 11).
Printed editions (5 5). Remarks : Antiochian revision (5 9). Illustrative notes (5 12).
Textus Receptus (5 6).
B. V ERSIONS
i. LATIN. ii. SYRIAC. iii. COPTICAND OTHER VERSIONS.
First traces (5 rj). Gospels : Three early versions (8 22). Coptic : Date of translation (I 32).
Their origin (s 14). Peshitta ($ 23). Three versions (B 33).
Classification (( 15). Fitessaron ($ 24). Ace of Bohairic and Sahidic
Gos els (( 16).
I

Old Syriac ' (5 25). (8 34).

PauYine epistles (5 17).
Acts (8 IS).
Catholic epistles (8 19).
A ocalypse ($ ao).
&story of Vulgate ( 8 m).
Relation of three (5 26). Three com ared (5 35).
Relation of Old Syr. to Diatess. (827). Armenian (5 y5f
Conclusion (0 28). Ethiopic ($3 7).
Acts and Epistlm.($ 29). Gothic ($383:
Later Syrlac versions (8 30). Other versions : Georgian, Slavonic,
Palestinian Syriac version (9 31). Arabic (pi 39).

Massoretic text (8 40).
Samaritan recension (8 45).
i. G R ~ E K .
Septuagint : origin (5 46).
citations (s 7)
Aquila, Symmacfius, Theodotion
Origen's work (8 sr).
Three recensions (5 52).
Extant MSS (8 53).
Printed editions (B 54).
Recovery of original Septuagint
11. OLD T E S T A M E N T
A. TEXT
Massoretic vowels (6 41). Printed editions (6 43).
Massoretic notes (§ 42). Correction of Massoretic text (p 66).
B. VERSIONS
List of versions ($ 44).
ii. LATIN. iii. SYRIAC A N D OTHER VERSIONS.
Old Latin ($ 56). Peshitta ($60).
Manuscripts (( 57). Syr& versions from Greek (( 61).
A OCI pha (S 58) Palestinian version (8 62).
&e &gate (S 5;). Other versions : Coptic (5 63).
Armenian, Gothic, Arabic (S 64).
Targums (5 65).

4977 4978
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
INTRODUCTION
The exact determination of the original text of the
Old and New Testaments is a study which has points of
1. General contact with questions concerning both the
Canon of Scripture, and the literary sources
limits. of the several books. There are instances of
a translation acquiring a scriptural authority which has
never been accorded to the original, as in the case of
ECCLESIASTICUS ( q . v . ) ; other books have been the
product of successive compilations and revisions, so that
it may become a matter of doubt at what stage of its
existence it can be said to have been in its original'
form. Generally, however, the limits of the subject
can be marked out by the actual state of extant
documents. Thus the criticism of the ' Priestly Code '
quite beyond textual . Our documents do not
as a single work. On the other band, the extant texts
of the Greek translation of Jeremiah suggest very serious
questions as to the collection and editing of his prophecies
and as to the authority for the arrangement found in
the Hebrew and adopted in the English Bible.
T h e case stands much the same with the NT. W e
can learn from the variations of our MSS little that
directly bears on the apostolic origin of the Fourth
Gospel or the Pastoral Epistles. Even the earliest
versions do not take us behind the collection of the
four evangelical narratives which together made up the
Gospel, or the collection of the thirteen Pauline Epistles.
Of the literaryfate of the Apostle's letters, of the journeys
which they may have made from Corinth to Rome,
or from Thessalonica to Philippi, before incorporation
into the collected edition, our MSS tell us nothing.
There is some evidence that there circulated in the
West an edition of the Epistle ' t o the Romans,' in
which the name of Rome was absent from the opening
salutation, and there is strong evidence that elsewhere
than in the West the name of Ephesus was absent from
the Epistle ' t o the Ephesians'; but on this one cir-
cumstance it is difficult to build. The only
where textual study touches the ' Higher C
though it must be confessed that it is an important one
-arises when we consider what inferences are to be
drawn from the incomplete condition in which the
Gospel according to Mk. appears in the best texts. By
whomsoever Mk. 169-20 was supplied, and at whatever
time it was first attached to the Gospel, the fact remains
that the genuine text breaks off in the middle of a sen-
tence with all the marks of accidental mutilation. T h e
natural inference, the only inference which would be
drawn from a similar state of things in any classical or
ecclesiastical writing in which such phenomena were
observed, is that all our MSS are ultimately derived
from a single copy itself imperfect at the end.'
But this forms an exception to the class of problems
raised, and the subject of this article may with little loss
of accuracy be defined to be the history of the text of
the books of the Old and New Testaments from the
time each became canonical, whether in the Jewish or the
Christian church.
The methods of scientific criticism are of course
equally applicable to the whole of the Bible. Indeed, in
certain branches of textual study the division observed
in this article between O T and N T has no significance.
The Old Latin for instance and the Egyptian versions are
translations of th; Greek Bible as a whole: in such cases the
only true divisions are those produced by the mechanical con-
ditions of transcription. Those hooks of the Bible which were
usually included in the same volume have usually the same
literary history. Nevertheless the division into N T and OT
represents for the most part 'a real distinction. All purely
1 Prphably it was mutilated elsewhere. Boanerges' is too
monstrous a form not to be a mere corruption.
4979
TEXT A.ND VERSIONS
Jewish documents obviously extend to the OT only. Then,
again, the Peshirta and the Latin Vulgate are in the OT trans-
lations of the Hebrew and the study of them raises a class of
questions quite sepadte from that raised by the study of the
texts of the N T with which they are bound up.
But the great distinction between the textual study
of the O T and that of the N T lies in the very different
a. Textual part which palzeographical error has
criticism. played in the surviving documents. Ac-
cidental mistakes in the chief ancient
texts of the N T are rare ; but in the O T they are to
be found continually. The inevitable result is that
conjectural emendation, which is almost inadmissible in
the NT, is in the O T a necessity, and one which can
historically be justified.
A few words here on this important subject may not
be out of place. Strange and confusing as the appearance
of an ancient MS is to our eyes, it was nevertheless
clear enough to those who wrote it, and the mistakes in
copying which we make are as a rule avoided in old
times. T h e discoveries of very ancient papyrus frag-
ments of classical works have not overthrown but rather
confirmed the better class of extant medizval codices.
As long as a work was frequently read, as long as the
scribe was fairly familiar with what he was copying,
mere mistakes do not seem often to have been made,
and when made were frequently corrected. In rare
and unfamiliar writings a perfectly different state of
things obtains, and there is then no limit to the perversity
of the copyist.
T h e N T was written by Christians for Christians ; it
was moreover written in Greek for Greek-speaking
communities, and the style of writing (with the exception,
possibly, of the Apocalypse) was that of current
literary composition. There has been no real break in
the continuity of the Greek-speaking church, and we
find accordingly that few real blunders of writing are
met with in the leading types of the extant texts. This
state of things has not prevented variations ; but they,
are not for the most part accidental. An overwhelming
majority of the ' various readings ' of the MSS of the
N T were from the very first intentional aZtwntions.
The N T in very early times had no canonical authority,
and alterations and additions were actually made where
they seemed improvements. T h e substitution of
v GrKaroubv?]vin Mt. 6 I and the addition of
$ X e p o u L v ~ for
the doxology to the L o r d s Prayer a dozen verses later
are not palzographical blunders, but deliberate editing.
The literary history of the O T has been very different.
While the Canon of the O T was being formed, Hebrew
was a dying language, and the political misfortunes of
the Jews were of a nature far less favourable to the
preservation of ancient documents than the legal per-
secutions of the Christians. Under Antiochus, under
Titus, and finally under Hadrian, the Palestinian Jews
suffered all the devastating and uprooting effects of a
wa,r for existence, and it is no wonder if, at the close of
each of these epochs, the MSS which survived were few
and torn, and the scholars who could read them fewer
still. Hebrew had become a learned tongue, its place
being mostly supplied by the various forms of Aramaic,
and it was not every Jew who could read the Scriptures
in the original, far less spell out correctly a damaged or
faulty exemplar. These are the very conditions in
which slips of copying are inevitably made and least
easily detected. T h e veneration which the Jews felt for
their Scriptures ultimately led them to copy SO accurately
as to preserve the most obvious blunders in the trans-
mitted text ; but this antiquarian science came too late.
Nor are we on much surer ground when we come to
the only very ancient version--vi#., the Greek Or,
commonly called the Septuagint. T h e fable of the
seventy translators, each of whom independently agreed
in their rendering, may be evidence that the Alexandrian
Jews had some common tradition of the meaning of the
Law ; but if we except the Pentateuch, to which alone
the name ' Septuagint' properly applies, the various
4980
 TEXT AND VERSIONS TEXT AND VERSIONS

hnnds were accurate representatives of the original preservation of the documents, the textual criticism of
version. Yet from these earliest Christian BISS our the N T is at the present time in a more advanced state
copies seem to be descended. than that of the OT. Contrary. therefore, to the usual
Thus both in the Hebrew original and in the Greek custom, the history of the text of the N T in the original

The original authorities for the text of the NT may value between a ' cursive ' and a n ' uncial ' MS.
be divided into three classes--viz., Greek MSS, Versions
made from the Greek, and Patristic
, CHIEF GREEK MSS OF NT
3. Original Quotations. The Greek MSS range in
authorities.
date from the fourth century' to the
Designation. 1 Place. i Contents.
invention of printing, the Versions from the middle of
4th Cent.
the second century to the ninth. The original form of
each version is attest'sd by MSS, some (as in the case of Hebr., Pastoral
of the Old Latin) as early as any known Greek MS,
and by the quotations of writers who used the version.
. W e may point out here the inherent merit of the 5th Cent.
testimony obtained from versions and patristic quota-
tions, and the counterbalancing difficulties attendant on
their use. The most ancient versions of the N T into
Latin, Syriac, and Egyptian, are older than our oldest
Greek M S S ; wherever, therefore, we can be sure that
we have the original form of any of these versions, and
D (Cod. Be*=)
A (Cod. A Zcxan-
dnkus)
C (Cod.Ephrremi)
Cambridge
London
Paris I 1
6th or 7th Cent.
Gospels and Acts.
all books.
fragg. of nearly all
books.

I 1
Dz (Cod.Claromon-
wherever we are able to retranslate with certainty that tunus) Pauline Epp.
original form into the Greek underlying it, we have a Es(Cod. L a u d i -
resultant Greek reading possessing a higher direct claim anus) z:rd Acts.
to antiquity than the :reading of any single extant Greek 8th Cent.
MS. Rut obviously i.his is not always the case. L (Cod. Regius) I Paris I Gospels.
gfh Cent.
i. Until a version has been critically studied we may not as-
sume that any single M!j faithfully represents its original form,
for the text of the MS may have been revised from later Greek
A (Cod. Sangal-
lensis) I S. Gallen IGospels 1originally
Aand GI
texts. Moreover, the early translations were not always literal,
nor can Greek distinctions always be represented in another lan-
guage, so that retransla1:ion in some cases is a matter of un-
certainty.
ii. The testimony derived from quotations in ecclesiastica!
G3 (Cod.
Pa (Cod.
Brernen'.
anus)Poq5hyn'- Dresden
anus)
1
S. Peters*
I formed
Paul. Epp. l o n e hook.
all bks. except Gospels
writers also requires very cautious handling. Many ' Fathers
were not in the habit of quoting accurately, and the text of their The following fragmentary uncial MSS are important
works, which in some important instances 'depends ultimately on for the light they throw on the history of the text :-
a single late MS, is often open to suspicion. Z (6th cent.)-fragments of Mt. ; a (8th cent.&fragments of
Nevertheless, patristic quotations have a special value Lk.; six fragmentary MSS denoted by T, ranging from the 5th
to the textual critic. They are as a rule both localised to the 7th cent. and containing portions of the Gospels with a
and dated. Where there is reason to believe that the Sahidic translation which together with some similar fragments
lately published h i Amdneau (Not. et Ex&. vol. xxxiv.), give
quotation in a writer's work reproduces the reading of the type of Greek text current in Upper Egypt.
his Bible we have in effect a fragment of a M S The most important cursives are : i. In the Gospels, those
of the writer's own age and country, which serves as a numbered 33, 157, 28, 565, 700; and the two groups 1 - 1 1 8 - 1 3 1 -
2 9 and 13-69-124-346-543. These two groups are composed of
fixed point in our historical and geographical grouping the immediate descendants of two lost uncials, each of which
of the continuous extant biblical texts. would have been as valuable for critical purposes as any but the
Unfortunately patristic evidence is often lacking just whereit is very chief codices BKDA. ti. Outside the Gospels a special
most wanted. The verses most instructive for tracing the literary mention must be made of 6r of the Acts, for the goodnes? of its
history of the text of the Bible are rarely those of immediate text ; also of 137, r80, and in the Epp. for the marginal readings
doctrinal import, and again and again where crucial variations cited as 67** (Paul) and 66** (Cath. Epp.).,
occur the testimony of early Fathers is absent. It is especially Cod. 565 (Gregory) is also called 473 (Scnvenzr, Burgon), and
difficu1.t 50 ascertain the true weight of the patristic evidence ape (Tischendorn.
for omission*. Cod. 700 (Gregory) is also called 604 (Smmner, Ffoshier).
Most non-Greek Fathers are to be reckoned among
,, 543 (Gregory) ,, 556 (Scirrizaner).
the authorities for the version in their vernacular ; but The history of the printed text of the Greek N T falls
some-notably Tertullian and Jerome-seem often to into three divisions. i. The first ape- opens
- with the
6. princeps of Erasmus at Base1 in
make independent translations of their own direct from Printed editio
1516, and includes the early printed
the Greek. editions' editions of Stephanus (P), I G ~ O ) , R e a ,
In quoting authorities, the Greek MSS written in
4. Chief MsS. u n c i d letters (ranging from the fourth etc., and the Polyglots. During 'this -6eriod the
to the ninth cent.-or later) are denoted ordinary form of the text, commonly called the Textzrs
by capital letters, those written in minuscuk (ranging Keceptus, was fixed, and the first collections of various
from the ainth to the sixteenth cent.) by numerals. readings were made. ii. The second age dates from
These latter are commonly called ' cursive.' (See Mill's edition of 1707. Little change was made in the
printed text during this second period ; but it is marked
1 Some papyrus fragments from Oxyrhynchus are still earlier, by the great collections of variants brought together by
being assigned to the middle of the third century A.D. Mill, Wetstein, Matthzei, and others. The first attempts
159 4981 4982
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
towards a systematic arrangement of the material by
Bentley, Bengel, and Griesbach also fall within this
period. iii. The third age dates from Lachmann’s
edition of 1831, in which for the first time a modern
editor constructed the text from ancient evidence alone,
without reference to previous editions. During the last
fifty years many very ancient documents have been
discovered; many more have been for the first time
accurately collated, or edited in full. As a natural
consequence the earlier collections of various readings
have been almost entirely superseded. The same may
be said also of the earlier critical theories, which were
based on imperfect data, especially with regard to the
primitive forms of the early versions.
T h e TexLw Receptzls derives its name from a passage
in the preface to the Elzevir edition of 1633. This edi-
6. Textus tion, though really little more than a
Receptus. bookseller’s reprint, professed to giye the
text as received by the best authorities1
As a matter of fact the early editions of the N T
were constructed from but few MSS, and those which
were chiefly followed were late and of no special
critical value. Yet from the very fact that the MSS
used were commonplace, these editions give a very
fair representation of the ordinary text of the middle
ages.
The importance of the Textus Recephs is derived not from
the accident that it was the text of the early editions or of any
one of them, but from the fact that it is in all essentidls the text
of the NT as publicly read in the Greek church ever since the
fifth century. For this reason, in collating the variations of MSS
the Textus Receptus (e.g., in Scrivener’sreprint of Stephanus)
should still be used in preference to any modern critical text.
A complete list of the editions of the N T in Greek is
given in ‘Tischendorf,’ vol. iii. pp. 202-287. T h e
two editions which are practically indispensable to the
student are those of Tischendorf-Gregory (1869-1894),
and of Westcott and Hort (1881). * Tischendorf’ ( L e . ,
the ‘editio ocfnva critica m a i o r ’ ) contains by far the
fullest collection of variants of every class, those of the
uncial MSS being almost completely recorded. T h e Pro-
legomena by C. R. Gregory (who brought the whole
edition to a conclusion after the successive deaths of Tis-
chendorf and Ezra Abbot) occupy the third volume, and
include full lists and descriptions of all the MSS,
versions, and editions. T h e edition thus forms a
complete Introduction to the study of the textual
criticism of the NT.
In using it, however, we must remember :-(I) The text is the
product of Tiqchendorfs somewhat arbitrary judgment, and has
no special authority: (2) some valuable readings, now only
found in minuscules, are not recorded, and must be looked for
in earlier editions, such as Wetstein, or even Mill ; (3) the read-
ings of the versions, especially of the Oriental versions, are not
always given accurately and they are rarely quoted where their
text, though implyinga hifferent Greek reading, is not supported
by any known Gieek MS.
The general theory contained in Westcott and Hort’s
New Testament in f k Onginal Greek (published in
’’ 1881, 1896) has formed the starting-
Westcott point for all subsequent investigation of
and Hart's the textual history of the NT. whether by
way of defence or of criticism. I t will
therefore be necessary to describe the main outline? of
this theory a t some length.2
If a text of the N T were formed by taking in each
variation the reading of the majority of the Greek MSS,
it would be in all ess6ntials identical with that found in
the works of Chrysostom, who died in 407, after having
lived all his life, except the last ten years, at or near
A n t i ~ c h . ~It would also be the text of Theodoret and
the other writers of the Antiochian school as well as of
later Greek Fathers generally. Such a text would,
1 The words of the Preface are : Textum ergo habes, nunc ab
omnibus receptum :in quo nihil intmutatum aut com$hrm
danrus.
2 The Introduction to this edition is from the pen of Dr.
Hort (%21). In the following pages it will he cited as ‘ Hort,’
with a reference to the numbered paragraphs.
3 Hort 130.
4983
TEXT AND VERSIONS
moreover, be practically identical with the ’ Received
Text ‘-that is. the text a s first printed by Erasnius in
1516 and repeated with little serious variation till
Lachmann’s edition in 1831. The text thus formed is
called by Westcott and Hort Syn’nn or AnLiochim.
Hort commonly uses the term ‘ S y r i a n ’ ; but the
‘Syrian T e x t ’ of the Greek N T is so easily confused
with the Syriac version (with which it has nothing t o
do), that the term ‘Antiochian’ will be used here
instead.
T h e agreement of the Antiochian text with C‘hrysos-
tom’s shows it to have been in existence as early as the
fourth century, whilst the fact that the MSS by which it
is supported form in most cases a majority numerically
overwhelming, shows that it continued to be the current
text of succeeding generations. I t does not agree, how-
ever, with the text as preserved in our oldest MSS K and
B or in the Egyptian versions, and still less would it be
the text represented by the older forms of the Latin and
Syriac versions. T h e clearest view of the nature of
the Antiochian text and of the documents which support
it is found in a series of readings called ‘ conflate’ by
Hort, where the later text has combined earlier rival
variants.
For example :-
I. Lk. 24 53 (after ‘and theywere continuallyin the temple’)-
(a)blessing God NBC’L Syr.sin.-palest Boh.
(s) praising God D e a ( 6 ) f l r Aug.
(6) p‘aising and bless- A unc.rell minusc.omn c f g
Ing God Lat.vg Syr.v hcl Arm.
(‘blessingand praising God ’ Ethfj’
(Latin MSS are represented by italics. For the notation of
the Versions and the weight to be given to them, see the sections
upon each version.)
Of the three readings here called a, p, and 6, either a and 9,
are independent abridgments of 6, or.6 has been made out of a
and p. That is, unless 6 he the original reading it is not a
chance alteration or expansion, but a combination ofprcuiously
existing variants. Now although 6 has the immensely pre-
ponderating numerical majority of witnesses in various regions
It is not supported by the older forms of text in any of th;
main classes of evidence. In Greek, 6 is opposed hy the three
oldest MSS NBC though it is supported by A, a MS of the
fifth century ; it i; o posed by the African (e) and the European
( a d f l y ) forms of tie Old Iatin, though sypported by tee
revlsed texts fg and Jerome’s Vulgate; in the East 6 IS
opposed by the Old Syriac (Syrsin or Ss) and the Palestinian
lectionary though supported by the Syriac Vulgate and the
Harclean finally it is unknown in the Egyptian version.
The analysis of the evidence is fatal to the originality of 6,
the Antiochian reading ; it must, therefore, he later than a and
and if later, must be a mere combination of them.
”2.1 kk.8 26 (following rai bsCurrrAav a;& e k ~ K O Va&oO
nearly].
-
(p3) MqGcvi a r q s eio r;lv ~ 6 p q v(or ;v
Syr.hl(mg.) Arm. have a prefix2 to Pi.
~ 6 p qk(c).
)
(6)Mq6& ais ~ 6 p r ) veLdA&r pq6P et
ACA unc.rel1 minusc.omn. (exc.
22th Go.
3
.5 rrvi I v ?) K C J ~
Syr.vg-hcl (tex$
(Notice that the Old Syriac version has now to be added in
both of these examples to the little hand whlch supports the a
text adopted by Hort.)
3. Lk. 2446.
(a) oihos r’yparrrar aaeciv rbv x p i m b v NBC*L D Lat.afr-
eur Lat. afr om. oihyr5) Syvpalest Boh.Bth.
@) o i h s &L s d e i v rbv xpturbv minusc4 Syr.sm (hiat cur)Arm
Eus. Theoph.
( 8 ) o h o s ydyp .ai o i h p &Sei rbu xp. ACW rell.fq vg
Syr.vg-hcl.
(Part of the verse is illegible in Syr.sin; but there is no doubt
as to the reading. Note that here, as often, the Armeman
follows SyLvt.)
The distribution of documents in these conflate readings is,
roughly as follows. To a belong NRL and the Bohairic
(or Me&hific) version ; to p belong D and the older forms
of the Latin versions. The Sahidic (The6aic) version sides
sometimes with a and sometimes with p as is the case also
with the Old Syriac. In a few cases where‘the Latins side with
a, the Old Syriac forms the chief item in the attestation of the p
1 Hort 140.
4984
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
text ; hut it never sides with 8. -111 other authorities (except
fragments) have been influenced by thc S text.
T h e groups of authorities marked off above as a, ,B,
and 8. are found to present distinct types of text all
through the Gospels. W e can thus test their witness
chrouologically and geographically through the quota-
tions of the Fathers. This examination again is as
adverse to the priority of 8 to a or (3 as the analysis of
the cotillate readings. Afi.er the fourth century, evidence
for 6 is abundant ; before the fourth century it is doubt-
ful or noii-existent.
A fourth family (y),independent of p and prior to the
Antiochim text (a), is recognised in Westcott and Hort.
N o document contains it in a pure form ; but readings
characteristic of it are :most frequent in N, L, T, 2
( M t ) , A (Mk), E (Lk), and in the Rohairic version, in
fact in all the documents where a readings are found
except R. This text i:; supposed by Hort to have
originated a t Alexandria and is called by him Alex-
andrian. The most constant witnesses for the text
called p are the various forms of the Old Latin ; it was
therefore supposed by previous investigators to have
arisen in the West of Europe, and is still universally
known by the name of I-l/cstern. T h e a text, which is
neither ' Western ' nor ' .Uexandrian,' nor ' Antiochian,'
is called by Hort iVeutYaZ.
These three strains-the Western, the Alexandrian,
and the Neutral- are the three ereat divisions into
8. The three which, according ;o Hort, the ante-
Nicene text of the N T can be divided.
texts* The 'Western' text is found every-
where, from the banks of the Euphrates to Spain and
to Upper Egypt. The Alexandrian text is witnessed
chiefly in Alexandria and Lower Egypt. T h e Neutral
text is not so clearly associated with any local use ;
but, as is implied by the name, its subsidiary attestation
is found among predominantly Alexandrian documents
as opposed to Western corruptions, and among the
\Vestems as opposed to Alexandrian corruptions.
Moreover, not all WesLern readings are shared by the
whole of the Western array, some early Western texts
i n many cases .support ng the Neutral reading where
other Western authorities have gone wrong.
Put more concretely, the case may be stated thus : conibina-
tions of B (the typical Neutral document) with E( or L or the
Bohairic on the one hand, or with D or the Latins or the Old
Syriac on the other, approve themselves as giving the genuine
reading. B is thus the central witness for the text ; it is some-
times right almost alone, aiid to reject its readings is never
quite safe. Instances are also given by Hort of 'ternary
variations,' where the Wec.tern texts have a corruption in one
direction and the Alexandrian in another, hut B retains the
genuine reading, which could not have arisen from either cor-
ruption and yet explains the origin of both.
Next in excellence to 13 is E(, which Hort believed to have
a text entirely independent of B ; so that the combination BE(,
which frequently occurs even in opposition to all other authorities,
is practically certain to give the true text. Almost the only ex-
ceptions are found in a series of passages found in all except
Western documents which are nevertheless considered by
Hort to he no part bf the genuine text of the NT. In these
pasages, called the ' Western Non-Interpolations,' B has gone
wrong, and the true teal. is preserved chiefly by D and the
Latins.
The reasons given by Hort for the final supremacy
of the Antiochian text are mainly two, one political and
the other literzry.
' Antioch is the true ecclesiastical parent of Constantinople so
that it is no wonder that the traditional Constantinopol&an
text, whether formally oficial or not, was the Antiochian text of
the fourth century. It WIS equally natural that the text recog-
nised at Constantinople ihould eventually become in practice
the standard New Testament of the East' (Hort 195). 'The
qualities which the authors of the Syrian [i.e., Antiochian] text
seem mostly to have desired to impress on it are lucidity and
. .
completeness. . New omis-ions accordingly are rare, and
where they occur are usually found to contribute to apparent
simplicity. New interpolations, on the other hand, are abundant,
most of them being due to harmonistic or other assimilation,
fortunately capricious and incomplete. Both in matter and in
diction the Syrian teYt is conspicuously a full text. ...
spirit of its own corrections IS at once sensible and feeble.
The
Entirely blameless on either literary or religious grounds as
regards vulgarised or unworthy diction, yet showing no marks
4985
TEXT AND VERSIONS
of either critical or spiritual insight, it presents the New Testa-
ment in a form smooth and attractive, but appreciably im-
poyerished in sense and force, more fitted for cursory perusal or
recitation than for repeated diligent study' (Hort 187).
The survival of good readings in some late cursives
may be accounted for in two ways. Readings from the
older texts may here and there have been introduced
into a fundamentally Antiochian text from marginal
glosses or through the eclectic preferences of scribes.
But as late MSS which contain good readings present
them in the less read parts of the narrative quite as
much as in the more striking sayings. it is probabk
that these good readings are generally the result of a
proccss of imperfect correction. A MS containing
another than the dominant Antiochian text would Le
corrected to that tcst, but not as a rule with perfect
accuracy. Only in those readings ahich do not agree
with the ordinary text of the Middle Ages can we be
certain that such hfSS are reproducing the text of their
remote ancestors. The minuscules, in short, give little
additional authority to the ' received text ' where they
agree with it, whilst their differences from it are often of
critical weight.l
I t is still held by a few scholars that the Syriac
-
Vulgate is a true Droduct of the second centurv. and
9. General that the version known by the name of
remarks: the 'Separated Gospels' (called in the
Antiochian apove section the ' Old Syriac ') is a re-
revision vision of it. According to this the
suooort eiven bv the Svriac Vulgate to
. I Y
the Antiochian text transfers the evidence for that text
from the fourth to the second century. But Syriac
patristic evidence for the existence of the Syriac Vulgate
(ie.,the Peshitta) in its present form before 411 A . D .
is non-existent ; whereas the text of the Separated
Gospels' (or 'Old Syriac') is actually attested from
works of the third and early fourth centuries. (For the
proof of this, see below on ' Syriac Versions ' 2 2 3 )
Another objection which has often been raised is
the silence of ecclesiastical writers with regard to the
Antiochian revision. It has been said that if there had
been prepared at Antioch early in the fourth ccntnry
a revision of the text of the N T which practically came
to supersede all other forms of the text, we should have
expected clear references in ecclesiastical writers to so
great an event. W e hear something about the circum-
stances which gave rise to Jerome's Vulgate ; should we
not find similar references to the Antiochian revision if
it had ever taken place?
The parallel here suggested with the history of the
Latin Bible is instructive ; a closer examination will
show that it tells the other way. It is true that we
know something about the preparation of Jerome's
new translation ; but this is owing to the fact that we
possess the correspondence of that energetic and self-
assertive personality. Of the reception of his N T we
know little, except that his revision of the Gospels seems
to have found favour immediately in Africa. A still
closer parallel to the silent success of the Antiochian re-
vision is afforded by the history of the Book of Daniel.
Both the Greek and the Latin branches of the church originally
received the Book of Daniel in the LXX version, but afterwards
discarded this for the version of Theodotion. The change
occurred in the Greek-speaking church towards the end of the
second century, in the Latin church (at least in Africn) about the
middle of the third century. But on events connected with this
serious alteration of the iraditional text ecclesiastical hi-tory is
silent, and we are forced to say with Jerome (Prref:in Dairier),
' e t hoc cur acciderit nescio.'
A true picture of the general attitude of the fourth
century to textual revision is, in the opinion of the present
writer, given by the Latin dialogue contra I;u&entizrm
Donatisfum,2where a Catholic and a Donatist dispute
together, the Catholic using the Vulgate throughout the
Bible unchallenged, though the Donatist uniformly quotes
from an Old Latin text.
Against these objections to the theory of the Antiochian
1 Hort rg6. and especially 3 3 4 5 2 Misne, 43 763
4986
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
revision we may now set the evidence derived from the
Sinai palimpsest ( S s ) ,a MS discovered some years after
the publication of Hort’s work.
Hort’s estimate of the Old Syriac had been necessarily derived
from Cureton’s MS (S,-), the surviving portions of which cover
less than half the Gospel text. It seems moreover, to repre-
sent a type of the Old Syriac which hag undergone revision
from the Greek (see col. 5002). Thus the discovery of Ss has
practically for the first time revealed to us the true character
of the great version of the Eastern world in its earliest form.
Now Ss is absolutely free from the slightest trace of
Antiochian readings. Not one of the characteristic
Antiochian conflations is found in it. Moreover, in
certain cases where the Latins agree with the ‘ Neutral’
text, but the Antiochian text has an additional clause,
this additional clause alone is found in Ss. An instance
is given above ( 5 7 ) from Lk.2446; another may be
found at Mk. 113, whilst the additions to the true text of
Mk. 1223 and 138 have a somewhat similar attestation.
These passages do not merely prove that the Old Syriac
was uninfluenced by the Antiochian text : they go far
to show that a text akin to the Old Syriac was one of
the elements out of which the eclectic Antiochian text
was constructed. Thus the readings of B and its allies,
the readings of the Old Latin and its allies, and now the
readings of the Old Syriac, all contribute to explain the
phenomena of the Antiochian text: but the mutual
variations of B and the Old Latin and the Old Syriac
cannot be explained from the Antiochian text regarded
as the genuine origina1.l
In leaving the discussion of the Antiochian revision
we leave the region of comparative certainty. Hort’s
division of the ante-Nicene text into the
lo. The
antiochian three strains of Western, Alexandrian,
L--.~r and Neutral, still more or less holds the
(IS*”&
ground: hut important details of his
scheme have incidentally been undermined, and the
fresh evidence of Ss is here much less favourable to his
presentation of the history of the text. The general
tendency of criticism has been to raise the value of
the texts which Hort would have grouped under the
heading of ‘Western.‘ T h e channel of early ‘non-
Western ’ transmission has been still further narrowed,
whilst there have come to light types of early ‘ Western ’
texts purer than those which have earned them both
their misleading name and their bad reputation.
I. Recent research has decidedly confirmed Tischen-
d o r f s assertion that B and K came from the same
scriptorinrn.
This was admitted bv Hort : but he thoueht that the two
MSS might have been Gritten h Rome It n’ow seems almost
certain that they both belonged to the great library collected hy
Pamphilus at Caesarea.2 We must therefore allow for the possi-
bility that their agreements come from a partial use of the same
exemplar. This might happen in several ways; c.g., the im-
mediate ancestor (or ancestors) of N may have been largely
corrected to the 13 text. These considerations do not militate
directly against the excellence of the common archetype of BH
but they undoubtedly raise once more the very serious question
whether these great codices are in every case independent
witnesses.
The demonstrable inferiority of B ip certain books of the OT,
notably Judges and Isaiah (see OT, Greek Versions ’), may he
held to cast a certain suspicion upon its N T text. But the great
Bibles of the fourth century must have been copied from several
smaller codices or rolls containing only part of the Scriptures.
The textual characteristics, therefore, of B in the Pro het4 or
the Octateuch are by no means necessarily those it exRihits in
the Gospels or the Acts.
2. T h e claims of the Antiochian text to represent the
apostolic original are rejected mainly because no clear
emdence can be found for it earlier than the fourth
century. I t 1s acknowledged by all that the various
forms of the Western ’ text were widely spread in the
secondand third centuries. But where was the ‘Neutral’
text transmitted ?
1 The latest serious defender of the conflate readings of the
Antiochian text is W. Bousset ( T e d e und Unte7~uchungen,
xi. 4 97.10~); but the emphatic rejection of these readings by Ss
has made the refutation of his argument superfluous.
2 See Bousset TU xi. 445 ff . J. R. Harris, Stichometry,
71-89 ; J. A. Rohson, Euth&;a, 36-43.
4987
TEXT AND VERSIONS
Hort’s answer is unambiguous. ‘The Western licence dic
not prevail everywhere, and MSS unaffected by its result!
were still copied. The perpetuation of the purer text may ir
great measure be laid to the credit of the watchful scholars 01
Alexandria ; its best representatives among the versions arc
the Egyptian, and especially that of Lower Egypt. and the
quotations which follow it are most abundant in ‘Clement
Origen (Dionysius, Peter), Didymus, and the younger Cyril, all
Alexandrians’ (Westcott and Hort, smaZkr ed. 550).
It must, however, be noted that the testimony of our
Alexandrian and Egyptian witnesses becomes more and
more Western the earlier they are. Of the three great
Alexandrian fathers, Origen is mare ‘ Western ’ than
Cyril, Clement is more ’Western’ than Origen.‘ Recent
criticism has dealt similarly with the evidence of the
Egyptian versions. T h e old arguments for the com-
parative antiquity of the Sahidic version remain, and
new discoveries of ancient fragments of that version and
its immediate kindred are made year by year. But in
the Sahidic ‘ the Western influence is often pecnliarly
well marked.‘2 T h e Bohairic, on the other hand, is
thoroughly non-Western ; but Guidi has shown that
this version in its present form, so far from being
a product of the thiyd century, is almost certainly not
earlier than the sixth. The very existence of a specifi-
cally Bohairic literature before the sixth century is
extremely doubtful (see 34).
Yet with all deductions it remains true that the
‘ Neutral’ text receives a larger measure of general
support even from the Sahidic version than from the
early Latin or Syriac texts. In other words, a pre-
dominantly ‘ non-Western ’ text was current in Egypt
from about Origen’s time onwards. W e are, moreover,
placed in a peculiarly favourable position for studying
this type of text owing to the fortunate accident that the
Antiochian revision never found favour in Egypt. Until
long after the Arab conquest the text found in Egyptian
documents, both Greek and Coptic, continued on the
whole to he that which Hort has called ‘Alexandrian.‘
This text, though far purer than the Antiochian, is
equally with it an artificial eclectic revision ; its survival
at Alexandria, alone among Greek-speaking communities,
was no doubt connected with the growth of Egyptian
Monophysitism.
3. The ‘ Western’ text, as a whole, has hitherto found
few defenders. This is partly due to ‘ a n imperfect
apprehension of the antiquity and extension of the
Western text as revealed by patristic quotations and
by versions’ (Hort 170). Hort, whose general estimate
of Western readings is no more favourable than that of
his predecessors, groups Western characteristics under
the three heads of Paraphrase, Znferpobtion, and
1 Z&f. 549. The Gospel quotations of Clement of Alexandria
have been carefully edited by P. H. Barnard (Texts andStudies,
1899).
5 3 Hort, 550.
3 The form in which the alternative ending to Mk. is
exhibited by the ‘Alexandrian’ text is a good illustration of
its highly artificial character. The genuine text of that
Gospel breaks off in the middle of a clause at Mk. 168 with the
words ;+oj3oiivro y i p. .. (‘for they feared . . . .’): but an
ancient text, now represented by the Latin Codex Bohiensis (h),
added the following sentence: ‘But all that they had been
commanded they showed forth in few words to those that were
with Peter. And after these things Jesus himself also appeared,
and from the East even unto the West sent forth by them thq
holy and incorruptible preaching of eternal salvation. Amen.
The absence of quotations from Mk. 169-20 in Tertullian and
Cy rian makes it highly probable that K here, as elsewhere, faith-
fulg reproduces the text of the Gospels current at Carthage up
to the middle of the third century. This shorter conclusion
evidently presupposes a text which ended at 16 8 as in BK and
ss.
Most documents of course add to 16 8 the so-called ‘last twelve
verses of S. Mark,’ forming m. 9-20. Z t is the characteristic of
t h Alexandrian recenrion that it @7es 80th concZmiOns, the
longer one being linked to the shorter by a critical note. This
composite endiug is still extant in five Greek MSS, in some
Bthio ic MSS and in the margins of the Harclean Syriac and
of the gest MS ’of the Bohairic, accompanied in most cases by
the critical note (see Amelineau, Not. et Exfr. 342: and the
descriptions of t [Gregory 4451, and of 112 [Gregory 13081, and
see also J. R. Harris, appendix to Mrs. Lewis’s Cat. of Syfi’ac
MSS at Mi.Sinai, 103J).
4988
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
Assimiiation (Hort 173-175). Notwithstanding this
unfavourable verdict, ' Western ' documents not unfre-
quently form the bulk of the attestation for the readings
adopted by him.' The fact is that the expression ' the
Western text ' is a misnomer. The ' Western ' docu-
ments do not present a single recension, like the
Antiochian text, or even a body of aberrant readings :
they rather represent the unrevised and progressively
deteriorated state of the text throughout the Christian
world in the ante-Nicene age. ' Western ' readings are
accordingly of various types, ranging from the un-
corrupted original to the most extreme forms of inter-
polation and paraphrase. It was a perception of this
fact that led Hug as early as 1808 to speak of what is
usually called ' the Western text ' by the name of Koivh
bK6OULE.
Much of the bad repiite of 'Western' texts comes
from the almost univer5,al practice of treating Codex
Beze ( D ) as their leading representative. But this
famous &IS,though it c:ontains very ancient elements,
is far from being a pure representative of any ancient
strain of text. A more just view would be gained by
taking, on the one hand, the Latin fragments called Cod.
Bobiensis ( K ) as the best type of the texts early current
in the West, and, on the other, the Sinai palimpsest ( S S )
as the best type of the 'texts early current in the East.
Both these documents would be reckoned as ' Western '
according to the ordinary view ; but it has not yet been
proved that they have any common origin later than the
archetype of all OUT extant authorities.
The discovery of the Sinai palimpsest has materially
altered our conceptions of the early ' Western' text, One
of the chief characteristics formerly assigned to that text
was a tendency to admit interpolation ; and the presence
in the leading ' Western ' authorities of a series of inter-
polations, which must have come from non-canonical
sources, seemed to make it obvious that all ' Western '
documents were derived from an interpolated copy of
the Gospels later than the archetype of BK and their
allies2 But though the Sinai palimpsest has a thoroughly
non-Alexandrian text, not one of these interpo2aacions is
found in it. It was the presence of clear errors in all
L Western ' documents known to the earlier critics which
made them think of a ' Western ' recension or edition ;
every fresh discovery, therefore, of documents funda-
mentally 'Western,' but nevertheless free from these
errors, makes the theory of a single Western recension
less and less probable.
4. One of the arguments employed by Hort in
favour of the genuineness of the ' Neutral' text is the
intrinsic excellence of the groups containing B, the chief
' Neutral ' document. 'This line of argument is of course
quite independent of theories connected with the spread
of the 'Western' or of any other ancient text. It
is somewhat open, however, to the charge of subjectivity,
and the very fact that not all the readings adopted by
Hort have found universal favour, proves that the evi-
dence of groups might have heen interpreted differently.
Salmon (Some Th0zvghl.ron the Tcxtuah Criticism of the
N T , 1897) calls the term ' Neutral ' ' a question-begging
1 Notable instances are Mt.633 [(B)Nl, 7 1 3 [N*], 1335
[BNb rnin.2 Orig.], 1620 [B* codd. ap. Orig.]. The square
brackets contain the 'non-Western' attestation of the text of
Westcott and Hort. Thus before the discovery of N the true
text of Mt. 6 33 7 13was known from ' Western' documents alone.
2 There are about twenty of these Western' interpolations
in the Gospels. The chief of them are :-Mt. 3 15 (the light at
the baptism); Mt. 16263 ('the face of the sky'): Mt.2028
('seek from little to increase'); Mk. 163 (the angelic host at
the resurrection) ; Lk. 6 4 (the man working on the Sabbath) ;
Lk.9543 ('Ye knownotwhatspirit ye are of'): Lk.?243j:(rhe
hloo%y sweat) ; Lk. 23 34a (' Father, forgive them ') : Jn. 5 4 (the
angel at the pool): Jn. 7 53-8 11 (the woman taken in adultery).
All these are absent from Ss as well as from BN, but they
appear to belong to the earliest Latin texts. The longer con-
clusion to the Second Gospel ([Mk.] 16g-20)is absent from k in
addition to BN Ss, so that this passage forms no part also of
the earliest non-AIexandriim text.
4989
TEXT AND VERSIONS
name' (p. 491, and adds with great truth, 'if we want a
more precise answer to the question what Hort means
by ' ' Alexandrian." we shall not he far wrong in saying,
those readings which are Alexandrian in their origin and
are not recognised by Codex R ' (p. SI). Yet there is
no doubt that the text of B in the Gospels is, generally
speaking, an excellent one. Of this there can be no
stronger proof than the support it frequently gives to
early readings, which, but for the witness of B, would
have been dubbed with the fatal epithet of 'Western.'
The habitual associates of B are of quite a diffcrent
character ; so frequently indeed does it agree with such
'Alexandrian' documents as TL and the Egyptian
versions, that it has actually been maintained that the
Gospel text o f ' B is a transcript of the Egyptian re-
cension of Hesychius (Bousset, T U x i . 492). But the
occasional, yet unmistakable, support which B affords
to the Western against the specifically 'Alexandrian '
readings is inconsistent with this view.2
T o sum up, Hort's text of the Gospels is less affected
bv recent discoveries than his criticism of the documents.
As was pointed out above, the readings
11*Conclusion. of BS, the authorities on which Hort
chieflyrelied, are often supported by the most ancient form
of the Old Latin (k),or by the most ancient formof the Old
Syriac ( Ss). These readings are almost always to be per-
ferred, for they represent an agreement between the best
' Western ' and the best ' non- Western ' texts. 'The
crucial difficulty occurs where all the early Western '
documents unite against BK, or BKL and the Bohziric.
In other words, the question before the textual critic in
the immediate future is, Are the oldest forms of the
Old Latin and the Old Syriac independent ? We may
put the question in another form. Accepting Hort's
nomenclatnre, and remembering that ' Western ' docu-
ments such as k and Ss not unfrequently support B
against the sfecifically ' Alexandrian ' text, what grounds
have we for thinking that B, or even BK united, is
entirely free from ' Alexandrian ' corrections?4 In the
portions of the Gospels where k and Ss are both ex-
tant, B has the support of one or other of them about
four times out of five ; may not B be itself in the wrong
in the remaining readings? How far, in fine, can we
trust B whether supported by the other Greek MSS or
not, in cases where its only attestation among the ancient
versions is Egyptian ?
The answers to these questions cannot positively be
given until a complete analysis has been made of the
extant 'Western' variants to the text of BK. It is,
1 E.<., in Lk.101 17,B has 'seventy-tyo' disciples with the
best Latin and Syriac texts not 'seventy.
2 There h not the slighteit likelihood that the nowAlexandrian
readings in B have heen introduced into the text of B s accestors
by irregular revision. The probability indeed is all the other
way. The few indications afforded by the actual readings of
the MS tend to show that 'Western' (or at any rate non-
Alexandrian') readings would have heen corrected out, not
introduced. The most striking instance is Mt. 27 16f: In these
verses the common text has Bapa&¶iv . .. BapaPBiv, but an
ancient text (now represented by some good minuscules, a
scholion, and the Old Syriac) read 'IqwoI?vBapa@@v . 'IqwoI?v ..
rbv Bapa,9Siv. Now B has 'IqwoBv in neither place ; but it in-
serts ~ bbefore
v the second Bapapf3i.v. The obvious explanation
is that an ancestor of B had the reading Jesus Bara66as, but the
corrector who expunged the word 'IqwoOv in both places omitted
to delete the article in the second place. Other instances some-
what similar, are Mt.2131 ( $ m e os). Mt. 2326 ( a h o i j . Lk;
1937 (a&-ov); Jn. 8 57 ( i 6 p a . e ~ ) . &s&h places the 'neut;ality
of B is the neutrality of compromise.
a A striking instance is afforded by the readings connected
with the double cock-crowing in Mk. 14. The text adopted by
Hort was that of H, a Greek lectionary, and the Bohairic. It
is now found also in Syr.sin. The fact that Syr.sin. here agrees
with R is a strong confirniation of the correctness of Hort's
judgment : at the same time it removes the whole set of varia-
tions from the category of places where the true text is pre-
served in 'non-Western' documents alone.
4 The definite issue is raised, for instance, in Mk. 6 20, where
BNL Boh read jndprr for &OLFL 'Eaoier (with slight variations)
is found in all other documents, including T.xt.vt and Syr.vt. If
4 ~ 6 p e rbe not original, it looks more like an ingenious conjecture
than a pakographical blunder.
4990
 TEXT AND VqRSIONS
however, in the direction here indicated-viz., the
preservation of the true text in a considerable number
of cases by ' Western ' documents alone-that criticisni
may ultimately be able to advance beyond the point
reached by Hort.
W e may add a few illustrations of passages where the
text adopted by W H can be certainly or probably
amended.
i. Mt. 68 ' your Father knoweth what things ye have
need of ~ p 706 b 3pis alr6uac ufi~bv.' For ainiuar airrbv
12. Illustra- we find dvoi$ar 7 b urbpu in D h.l This
picturesque locution has been adopted
tive texts. by Blass and by Nestle (Hastings' DB
7 3 9 n ) ; the slenderness of the- attestation may-be ex-
plained by the desire of avoiding what seemed an
undignified expression. All Syriac VSS. support the
common text; but it is worth noticing that in Mt.
5 2 Ss reads ' and he began to say to them ' instead of
' and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying. . .'
A somewhat similar variant is to be found in
Mt. 7 2 3 , where for bpohoyfiuw we find d p b m attested
by b q vg.codd.pp.lat (incl. de ReBuptismate, $ 7 ): Justin
Martyr 262, with the African Latin ( 2 [Cyp] also [a]g)
and Sc (hiat SS),have Qii-i.e., their text has been as-
similated to Lk. 1 3 27.
ii. Mt. 115 ' K U ~. ~ r ~ w x oedayyeXl{ov7ar
i ' om. K Ss
Diat.Yid( i . e . , &foes. 100).
These words belong to the genuine text of Lk.7 2 2
and are in accordance with Lk.'s accustomed diction.
In Mt.. on the other hand, the word e6ayyehl~euBat
never occurs again : if the phrase omitted by k and Ss
be retained, we must almost assume that Mt. is here
directly borrowing from Lk. Omit the phrase, and the
linguistic difficulty is removed ; Mt. gives the actual
words of Jesus, whilst Lk.'s addition ' the poor are
evangelised ' is an early (and correct) interpretation of
them. Similarly v o p r ~ b s in Mt. 2235 is alien to the
diction of the First Gospel and comes from Lk. 1025 :
the w-ord is rightly omitted from Mt. by 1-118-209
e Ss Arm Origen 'at.
Harmonistic additions are among the most frequent
and misleading corruptions of the text, as Jerome was
the first to see : 'dum eundem sensum alius aliter ex-
pressit, ille que unum e quattuor primum legerat, ad
eius exemplum ceteros quoque aestimauerit emendandos'
(Ep. nd D U T ~ Z ~ ~ S W Z ) passages
Other . where the dis-
covery of Ss has helped to remove additions of this kind
are Mt. 2144 (taken from Lk. 2018) ; Lk.1133 0662 h b
~ b p66tov
v (Mt. 5x5) ; Jn. 12 8 ' For the poor ye have
always with you, but me ye have not always' (taken
from Mk. 147, Mt. 2611, but omitted in Jn. by D
Mt. 251 'went forth to meet the bridegroom
and the bride,' D I*-209 124' Latt Syrr (incl. S,)
Arm. This addition is certainly genuine, and in ac-
cordance with Oriental custom. The bridegroom goes
with his friends to bring away the bride from her father's
home ; no one is left at the bridegroom's house but a
few 'virgins' ( L e . , maidservants) to keep watch. In
the parable these maidservants represent the church
(as in Lk. 1236), whilst the arrival of the wedding pro-
cession with the bridegroom and his bride represents the
coming of Christ. Christ is here the bridegroom and
the bride: the waiting servants are the church. But
the more familiar image vras the comparison of Christ
to the bridegroom, the chiirch to the bride ; when the
Bride had become the stock metaphor for the church,
the careless editor had a strong temptation to leave it
out in the parable where it does not mean the church.
iv. Mt. 832 ' ~ aaappvufq
l r b v h6you #XdXei.' These
words come after the first announcement of the Passion,
without variation in Greek MSS. As they stand they
are a remark of the evangelist, to which there is nothing
1 Z.e., cod. Claromontanus of the 6th century. D has the
itacism A N O I I E .
4991
TEXT AND VERSIONS
corresponding in the parallel passages Mt. 1621,Lk.
922 : either the remark was considered too uninteresting
to repeat, or it originally contained something which
later writers might regard as unsuitable. For vu. 31f.,
Ss Diatar and k have the Son of Man must suffer
many things ... and after the third day rise and
openly speak the word '-i.e., they read XaXeiv or ~ K X U -
Xsiu instead of PXdXei, thereby making the clause part
of Jesus' word to the disciples. The central thought,
therefore, of the prediction is not the physical miracle
but the general victory of the Gospel after the great
struggle (cp Hos. 6zJ). That Jesus did not preach
' openly' after the Resurrection was a reason why the
clause should be omitted by Mt. and Lk., and at a later
period should be altered in Mk.; but the agreement
here of our earliest eastern and western texts enables ns
to restore the original form with confidence.
v. T h e restoration of the true tests of Acts is a more
difficult matter than that of the Gospels owing to the
comparative poverty of the evidence. W e need especi-
ally something corresponding to the 'Old Syriac,' by
the aid of which we might separate really ancient read-
ings in the Old Latin and in D from those western
variants that never had anything beyond a local circula-
tion. Several of the proper names are undoubtedly
corrupt. E.g., ' I o d a t a v Acts 29 is impossible, for
Judzea is quite out of place between Mesopotamia and
Cappadocia. The African Latin (Tert. adu. Jud. 7,
Aug. c. Fund.) substituted A m e n i u m ; but this is
palzeographically unlikely : possibly Lk. wrote
~ O p h y A l A N - i . e . , Gordyzea, now Kurdistan. vi. In
Acts 4 6 'Iwdvvvs is a mistake for 'IwvdBas, the true
name being preserved only in D, in Berger's Perpiguan
MS and (as E. Nestle points out) in Lagarde's O S
69 18 : on the other hand the Fleury palimpsest ( h ) is
said to have [Zolhannes, and we may conjecture from
the Doctvine of Addai 1123 that the Old Syriac attested
Onius. vii. In Acts 13 8 the present writer has a strong
suspicion that the mysterious name 'EXdpas, for which
Q r o r p s is read or inferred in several Western documents,
is a corruption of 6 horpbs, ' the pestilent fellow' (cp
Acts 245). But conjectures of this kind stand on
quite a different footing from those restorations of the
text which are based on a consenus of the most ancient
evidence. If we are to feel any confidence that this or
that phrase or variant is the actual word of the original
writer, it must be because we can really trace back the
phrase in question to the earliest times, not because it
happens to have commended itself to some critic of the
ancient or modern world.
In addition to Hort's Introducfiort (above, 5 7), the following
works on N T textual cr
separate edition of the Pro&gotnena to ' Tischendorf,' brought
u p to date. -4 new and important work on textual criticism is
announced (Igoz) by H. von Soden.
R. VERSIONS
I. LATIN
Latin versions of the scriptures can be traced back into
the second century. The Scillitan martyrs at Carthage
13. Latin ver- in the year 180A . D. had in their case of
rolls ' epistles of Paul the just man.'
sions : first What type of text these MSS may have
traces. contained it is of course impossible
directly to determine ; but the occasional references of
Tertullian (e.$. , udu. Prur. 5) to the translation then
in common use are not inconsistent with the belief that
it w-as of the same general type as thnt found in the
many biblical quotations of Cyprian.
T o Cyprian. according to the judgment of the latest
1 Texts and Studies, i. 2 114.
4992
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
investigator of his s.tyle,’ the Latin version seemed
c clumsily executed and quite modern ’ ; but he quotes it
continually with remarkable accuracy, and never seems
to question the correctness of the renderings. The
natural inference is that Cyprian in the middle of the
third century found a definite Latin text established as
an authoritative standard in Carthage.
W e are able to carry back the history one stage
farther. The quotations of Novatian, Cyprian’s Roman
contemporary, give us the text current in Rome, just
as Cyprian’s quotations give us the text current in
Carthage. To thein we may add the few verses
quoted by the Roman presbyters Moyses and Maxi-
mus in their let& to Cyprian (ap. Cypr. E$. 3 1 ,
9 4). These quota.tions present marked differences
from the Cyprianic text, as well as marked agreements
with it ; we are, therefore, justified in assuming for both
the Carthaginian and the Roman types a common
origin, which at thesame timemust have been sufficiently
remote to allow for the development of the characteristic
differences between the two texts.
No fvadz’tion of the origin or literary history of the
Latin versions seems to have been known even to
14. Their Augustine or Jerome ; it remains an open
question whether the first translation was
origin. made in Roman Africa, in Italy, or in Gaul.
What is certain is that by the middle of the fourth
century, Latiti biblicd MSS exhibited a most confusing
variety of text, caused at least in part by revision from
later Greek MSS a:; well as by modifications of the
Latin phraseology. This confusion lasted until all the
‘ Old Latin ’ (or ’ ante-Hieronymian ’) texts were sup-
planted by the revised version of Jerome (383-400 A. D. ),
which was undertaken at the request of Pope Damasus
and ultimately became the Vulgate of the Western
church.
We are thus driven back on evidence other than
tradition to classify our MSS-to find, if possible, the
local texts which they respectively represent. This
classification is the more necessary as the primary
importance of the Old Latin versions lies in their age.
The ’ Old Latin ’ may go back to the second century :
but before any particular Old Latin reading can be
safely treated as second-century evidence we require at
least prima facie proof that the document in which it
occurs has a text which has largely escaped revision
from later Greek MSS.
In classifying our Old Latin authorities each group of
books must be treated separately. As a matter of fact,
16. Classification. the different groups have had differ-
ent literary fates. In the Gospels,
the Psalms, and Isaiah, we find a maze of aberrant
texts : on the other hand, the book of Wisdom seems
never to have undergone a thorough revision in
later times, and the text of Cyprian’s citations here
hardly differs from the printed Vulgate.
T h e necessary starting-point is supplied by the biblical
quotations in the L:.tin Fathers. Some of the evidence,
however, derived from this source must be used with
great caution.
i. I t is rarely possitle to take the many scriptural allusions
in Tertullian’s works as literal representations of the bihlical
text ciiment in Carthaqe in his day. They are, in fact, 50 unlike
any surviving type of ihe Latin versions that it is maintained by
Zahnz and others that the Bible had not been translated into
Latin in Tertullian’s time. Even those however who place the
origin of the Latin Bible earlier than ?ertullian’admit that he
often translates direct?y from the Greek. A clear instance of
this is de C a n e Chn’E.!i 5 10, where Mt. 116 is quoted in agree-
ment with the ordinary Greek reading against the combined
testimony of all the older Latin texts.
ii. A great uncertainty hangs over the age of the Latin trans-
lation of 1ren;eus’s work against Heresies. If it be contemporary
with the author it becomes a primary witness for the Gallican
text. Some, however including Hort, have placed it in the
fourth century, and thk is undoubtedly the safer view.
iii. One of our chief authorities, the Testimonia of Cyprian
1 E. W. Watson in Sfvdia Biblica 4 195.
3 GescA. a’. NT Kanons, 15160:
4993
TEXT AND VERSIONS
(a series of proof-texts from Scripture) was so popukr in the
Latin church that certain later writers huote from It instead of
using the Bible directly. In so far as this is done these writers
cease to be independent witnesses. This applies to Firinicus
Maternus, Commodian, Lactantius, and in part to Lucifer and
Zeno.
Fragments at least of eighteen MSS of the Old Latin
Gospels are still extant. Of these only one-the Latin
18. The of Codex h z a e (+is a bilingual. Five
of these MSS--vi%, codd. Vercellensis ( a ) ,
‘ospels. Veronensis ( b ) , Palatinus ( e ) , Sangallensis
(z),Bobiensis (.&),-as well as d itself, are of the fourth’ t
r--
or the fifth century, having therefore been transcrikd
at a time when the Old Latin was in full church use.
Hort was the first to point out the close connection
of the texts of R and e with the many and accurate
quotations of Cyprian (died 2 5 8 ) . Of these two MSS
k is more faithful to the Cyprianic standard than e ;
but both are quite on a different plane from the rest of
the Latin MSS. W e may therefore take the text of k
and e as representing the form in which the Gospels
were read at Carthage in the middle of the.third century
before the Decian persecution. T h e only other non-
Patristic authorities which show a distinctive African
( i . e . , Cyprianic) character are the contemporary correc-
tions in the text of n (esp. in Lk. and Mk.), corrections
which must have been made from a MS very like e , and
isolated sections (.g., the last chapters of 1.k.) in the
late MS t (Colbertinus).
T h e character of the ‘African Latin’ differs much
from other Old Latin texts both in language and in the
underlying Greek text.’ But one fact stands out above
all others-its unlikeness to the eclectic texts of the
fourth century, both Greek and Latin.
For the most part the interpolations of this, the oldest con-
tinuous Latin text of the Gospels that has come down to us are
to a large extent not the interpolations of the eclectic texts,’and
its omissions are not their omissions. moreover its renderinms
are not the renderings of the later reksed Latin texts such Xs
the Vulgate and its immediate YdeCessors. All this tends to
show that the African text of t e third century had to a large
extent escaped revision from Greek sources; in other words
that the Greek text implied by K and its companions is tha;
which underlies the original translation.
T h e remaining Old Latin MSS, including the Latin
of Cod. Bezze, may be classed as ‘European,’ since
they agree with the European Fathers against the
peculiar African renderings. The origin of this type of
text is still obscure. The MSS group themselves round
the two great codices a and 6. Of these 6 occupies a
central position, the other MSS differing from one
another more than they differ from it. At the same
time it may be doubted whether a does not represent an
earlier stage of the European text, as the quotations of
Novatian (the Roman contemporary of Cyprian) pre-
dominantly favour a against 6, so far, that is, as the
‘ European ’ type is developed in them. This is especi-
ally the case in Jn., where the n text is also supported
by Lucifer of Cagliari. On this view ‘African’ read-
ings fonnd in a are relics of the earlier form of the
‘European’ text. On the other hand 6 is the oldest
representative of that stage of the European text from
v-bich most of the later forms of the Old Latin, and
finally the Vulgate, are descended.
Some of the later Latin texts have been partially
conformed to the Antiochian Greek text. The most
prominent surviving example is Cod. Brixianus (f), a
Gospel MS of the sixth century. I t has been con-
jectured that hfSS of this type were referred to by
Augustine under the term It& and that they formed
the basis of Jerome’s revision. But it is much more
probable that Augustine’s ZtaZa means the Vulgate ;
see below ( 5 59). The peculiar element off is derived
from the codices of the Gothic version brought into N.
Italy by the Lombards and perhaps by previous northern
invaders during the fifth and the sixth century, whilst
the agreement o f f and the Vulgate (which in parts is
1 See especially Sanday’s essay on the text of k in OldLatin
Biblical Texts, vol. ii.
4994
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
very marked) is most likely due to the intrusion of
Vulgate readings into the text off.’
Many ‘ Antiochian’ readings are found in the Vulgate, as is
only natural in a revision undertaken by the aid of Greek MSS
at the end of the fourth century. Some noteworthy agreements
of the Vulgate with the Greek MSS H and B are also found
especially in the Acts : this points to a use of the great librar;
at Czsarea. Jerome gave special heed to the elimination of
harmonistic corruptions and to correcting the rendering of
important doctrinal expressions. A well-known instance of the
latter is the introduction of sujersuhstaniiaZewz into the Lord’s
Prayer in Mt. instead ofcotidianum, to render Iwro6urov. Quite
as characteristic is mundus for d ~ 6 u p o sin Jn., hic nrundus being
reserved for d ~ d u p o cobroc.2
The African text of the Pauline epistles is im-
perfectly preserved. T h e version used by Cyprian is
l,. Pauline not represented in any known MS, though
some of its peculiar renderings reappear
epistles. in the not inconsiderable quotations of
Tyconius (flor. 380). Entirely distinct from these, and
representing a different Greek original, is the text of
Gal. 5 1 9 8 as quoted by Nemesianus of Thubunze a t
the Council of Carthage (256 A. D. ), a text which has
points of contact with Tertullian (cp de Pudic. § 17).’
Among European texts the Latin of cod. Claromon-
tanus (D, dz) holds a high place. T h e twin texts of
bilingual MSS are always open to the suspicion of
having been greatly assimilated one to another. In the
case of d,, however, the genuine Old Latin character of
the text is vindicated by its frequent agreement with the
quotations of Lucifer of Cagliari (t370). The curious
interlinear Latin version of Cod. Bcernerianus (G, 9,) is
not predominantly supported by any Latin writer, and
perhaps ought not to be reckoned among continuous
Old Latin authorities. T h e revised text used by
Augustine in this part of the N T is represented by
fragments of two MSS formerly at Freising, now at
Munich ( r ,r,).
I n the Vulgate itself comparatively few changes
appear to have been made by Jerome in the Pauline
Epistles, so that it may almost be reckoned among the
late Old Latin texts. On the other hand the Gothic-
Latin MS usually quoted as gue has very little inde-
pendent value, as the Latin has been assimilated to the
parallel Gothic text.
The Epistle to the Hebrews was absent from the
original form of the Latin canon, and it is not quoted
by Cyprian or Tyconius, nor apparently by Irenaeus.
Tertullian quotes it once (de Pudic. zo), but not as
scripture ; as in the other parts of the N T the version
he uses does not agree with any other Latin authority.
I t is, therefore, of interest to observe that the text of
Hebrews in d, stands on the same footing with that of
the rest of the epistles, the agreement with Lucifer
being there as clearly marked as elsewhere, although in
the MS itself the epistle forms a sort of appendix at the
end. The epistle also occurs in the Freising MS, with
the text of which the quotations of Augustine agree.
The ’Western ’ text of Acts is found in nearly all
Old Latin authorities (see col. 4996, n. 3) ; in attempt-
18. dcts. ing therefore to trace their mutual connec-
tion we must chiefly be guided by the style
of the Latin renderings. The mere presence of Western
glosses in a Latin source, such as Augustine, tells us
little of his relation, e.g., to the Latin of Cod. Bezae.
T h e most important quotations are found in Irenaeus,
Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, Lucifer of Cagliari,
and the anonymous African tract de Rebaptismate
1 F. C. Burkitt f o u m . of TheoZ. Studies 1129-134: Fr.
Kauffmann’s Beitkge mr Quellenkritik der iotischen Bibel-
iibersetzung 5,’ in Ztsch.f: dcutsche Philologic, 32 05 335
a I n Jn. 10 16 the Vulgate against all Greek MS8, subsiitutes
unum o d e (‘one fold’) fd, the Old Latin unusgrex (‘one
flock ’) and from the Vulgate was derived the familiar rendering
oftheduthorised version. The Vulgate rendering of thisvcrse has
been used by Wordsworth and White in support of their view
that Jerome used Greek MSS of a type of text now lost. See,
however, J. H. Bernard in Hermathenu, 1133934%
9 F9r Nemesianus see C. H. Turner in Joum. of Tho[.
Studies, 2 m z f i
4995
TEXT AND VERSIONS
(usually bound up with Cyprian). Of MSS we hare
besides the Latin of the bilinguals Cod. R e m ( d ) and
Cod. Laudianus (e2), large fragments of an African text
in the sixth-century palimpsest Cod. Floriacensis ( h ) ,a
complete European text in Cod. Gigas Holmensis (g),
and 1-136 2816-end in a (?) Spanish text published by
Berger from a MS once at Perpignan ( p ) . There are
also fragments of a late European text in a fifth-century
palimpsest at Vienna (s), now published by H. J. White.
T h e ‘ A c t a ’ of Augustine’s dispute with Felix the
Manichee at Hippo in 404 A.D. shonld almost be
counted among the MSS, for in them Augustine reads
from a codex the continuous text ,of Actsl-211 (see
below, 5 21).
The most primitive form represented by these MSS is
that found in L, the text of which is almost exactly that
of Cyprian and also of Augustine. That the text con-
tained i n g is ancient, although the MS is only of the
thirteenth century, is proved by its close agreement with
the quotations of Lucifer, where it agrees with as well
as where it differs from the Vulgate.
This type of text is also found in a Milan lectionary (gz)con-
taining the story of Stephen, and tosomeextent ins; itreappears,
strange to say, .in the , non-Vulgate portions of the ‘Liber
Comicum,’ a isigothic lectionary puhlished by Morin. The
text ofp differs greatly fromg, and seems to have most affinity
with the very scanty extracts in the Speculum (m)which run
parallel to it. The not unfrequent agreements ofp with e, seem
rather to be due to the fact that each is a very literal version of
the Greek than to real kinship of text. The Latin columns of
the two bilinguals d and e,. as we might almost expect, agree
closely with no ancient Latin text.1 The renderings found in
the quotations of Tertullian and the Latin translation of Irenaeus
here as in other parts of the Bible do not agree consistently
with any other authority.
With regard to the underlying Greek, Irenaeus and
the Africans together with the Perpignan M S all go
back to a Greek text such as that of Codex Bezae, but
comparatively seldom afford any real support to the
eccentricities of its Latin side. It is probable that the
‘Western ‘ element of E, (Laudianus) is ultimately of
Latin origin.2 This, however, but rarely gives an
independent value to the Latin side of the existing MS,
except where E, stands alone among Greek authorities.
Whatever the history of the ancestors of Cod. Laudianns
may have been, in our M S the Greek and the Latin are
almost completely equated to each other. The pages
indeed have quite the appearance of a glossary.
I n the later European text represented by g and
Lucifer the ‘Western ’ glosses have been to some extent
corrected out. This is true still more of the Vulgate,
which in Acts not unfreqnently follows the Greek text
approved by modern critical editors.
A very remarkable type-a third-century African text
as far a s regards renderings, but without the ‘ Western ’
glosses-is found in the anonymous tract de Redaptis-
mate.
It reflects in fact the isolated position of the writer, who,
although a contemporary of Cyprian, differed from the majority
of the Africans in the biblical text he used, as he differed from
them on the question of the Rebaptism of heretics.3 The
literary history of Acts in Latin can never be regarded as de-
finitely settled until the appearance of this curious text is
sufficiently accounted for.
The full collection of seven Catholic epistles which
19. Catholic usually follows Acts in Greek MSS was
not included in the Latin canon until
epistles. the fourth century. Only I Pet. and
I Jn. with Jude had hitherto been universally re-
1 This contrasts strongly with the perfect agreement between
e, and Beda, who actually used the Cod. Laudianus itself.
a &lass Acta ~ j z p.. 2af:
3 The ;hraseology of the quotations in the de Rehapiismate
is almost always that of the Cyprianic Bible. The work is a
letter apparently addressed to Cyprian himself (S 4, B IO). It
is possible that it was not originally composed in Latin, and that
we possess only the Latin translation, as in the parallel case of
Firmilian’s letter to Cyprian (ap. Cypr. E$. 75). This would
account both for the African phrases and for the non-African text.
It is worth noticing that the de ReEajtismute contains a clear
allusion to Mk. 16 14 ($ Q, end : nmz crediderunt, nisipostmoduunr
ab ipso Domino omnibus modis fuissent odiurguti atque
increjuti).
4996
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
ceived, although 2 In. is also quoted by some early
Fathers.
The extant Old Latin authorities for this division of
the N T are as follows :-(i. ) Of the Old African version
no MS is known ; but we have the quotations of Cyprian
from I Pet. (called ad Ponticos. as in Tertullian) and
I Jn. With these, on the whole, agree the quotations
of Tyconius. A ver.je from 2 Jn. is quoted by one of
the Bishops a t the Council of Carthage. (ii.) A later
African revision, including all the seven epistles is found
in Augustine. Of this revision we have two MSS, h at
Paris (fragments of I and z Pet., I Jn.) and q at
Munich (a large fragment of I Jn.). h is the same
Cod. Floriacensis as in Acts, but in the Cath. Epp.
the text is not Cyprianic, but late African. A peculiar
recension is found in the pseudo-Augustinian Speculum
(m), in which the extracts from Jas. agree very closely
with the quotations of the Spanish heretic Priscillian.
This late Spanish type of text is noteworthy as the
original source of the famous gloss of the Three
Heavenly Witnesses in I Jn. 57. (iii.) Among Enro-
pean texts we have the extensive quotations of Lucifer,
including more than half of Jude ; fragments of Jas.
and I Pet. are also found in s (see 18). Of Jas. a
complete text is extant in a non-biblical MS formerly a t
Corbey, now at St. I’etersburg (f). This translation
appears to be as old as the early part of the fourth
century, and is apparently used by Chromatius of
Aquileia. A fragment of 3 Jn. is found in Cod. Bezae,
immediately before Acts ; but it must remain a matter
of conjecture what other books that MS once contained
between the Gospels and Acts.‘
The Apocalypse from the first formed part of the
Latin hX, and in Africa the ecclesiastical version of it
ao. Apocalypse. does not seem to have suffered re-
vision in the fourth century as was the
case with the rest of the N T , except Acts. Hence it
comes to pass that the late African * text of the Apoca-
lypse, as given almost in full in the Commentary of
Primasius, bishop of Hadrumetum in the sixth century,
differs but little from the Cyprianic text. The same
text is also found in the fragments of Cod. h (see above,
IS$). A somewhat different type appears in the
Commentary of Tyconius, large fragments of which
are preserved in F’rimasius, in Beatus the Spaniard,
and in other sources. Reside these a late European
text is extant in g (see above, 5 18) ; but Lucifer avoids
quoting the Apocalypse altogether. A third type of
text seems to underly the Vulgate, which has affinities
both with g and with the African text.
In certain circles some parts of Jerome’s revised
translation were received immediately into Church use.
21. History This, for instance,was the case a t Hippo.
Augustine, whilst writing to Jerome in
of the 403 A . D . to deprecate his great changes
Vulgate. in the (3T, nevertheless says: ‘Proinde
non paruas Deo gratias agimus d e opere tu0 quod
Euungelium ex Graeco interpretatus es, quia paene in
omnibus nulla offensio est.’ This limitation of his
praise to the Gospel :ISconfirmed by the story of the
trial of Felix the Manichee in the following year (see
above, 5 18). At the trial Augustine had occasion to
read from the N T the story of the descent of the Spirit.
.4ccordingly there was handed to him first a Codex of
the Gospels, from which he read Lk. 2436-49 in the
Vulgate text ; then being given a Codex of Acts, he
read out Acts 11-2II in a very pure African Old Latin
text. T h e fact that the text of Acts as here given is
quite unmixed with Vu:gate readings shows that our MSS
of ’ Aug. contra ZWicem ’ have suffered no wholesale cor-
ruption ; we cannot therefore but conclude that by 404
A . D . the Gospels were read at Hippo from the Vulgate,
The vacant space would suggest that the missing books are
1
the Apocalypse, and all three ohannine epp., making up
with the Fourth Gospel t h e compjete Instrumenturn fohannrr
(Tert. d e Res. Cumis, $3 38).
4997
TEXT AND VERSIONS
whilst in other books of the Bible, such as Acts, the
unrevised Old Latin was still publicly used.
I n some parts of the Western Empire the dld versions
were long retained in ecclesiastical use, especially in
Gaul and N. Italy. This resulted in the formation of
mixed texts, sometimes by the insertion of familiar Old
Latin phrases into Vulgate MSS, but more often by the
imperfect correction of the codices of the old versions to
the Vulgate standard. These principles were in action
in all parts of the Latin church; but they produced
somewhat different types of text owing to the different
epochs at which the Vulgate text, as current in Rome
and S . Italy generally, was brought in among the
various nationalities.
Some of the most interesting texts of the Vulgate come
from the British Isles. Both Great Britain and Ireland
had received the Bible before the victory of Jerome’s
revision ; hut the coming of the heathen English almost
entirely destroyed Christianity in what is now England.
T h e mission of Augustine brought the Vulgate with it.
and the careful English scholars of Northumbria looked
to Rome and S . Italy for patterns of text, rather than
to north-western Europe. A product of the North-
umbrian school is the Codex Amiatinus, now a t Florence,
the leading MS of the Vulgate both in the Old and in the
New Testament. This great book appears to have been
copied from a Neapolitan text ; it was written at Jarrow
or Wearmouth a little before 716 A . D . and was brought
to Italy as a present to the Pope by the Abbot Ceolfrid.
The Irish, until after the time of Coluniba, adhered
to the Old Latin ; one fairly pure Irish Old Latin text
of the Gospels survives in Cod. Usserianus ( Y ) . From
about the year 700, however, the Roman tonsure and
the Roman text began to make way among the Irish
also, and this resulted in the prevalence of a mixed type
of iLlSS of which the Book of Kells and the Book of
Armagh are noteworthy examples. A similar type of
text is found also in MSS written in Britain, represent-
ing the fusion of Iona and Rome.
Simultaneous with the re-establishment of a Western Empire
under Charlemagne came effortsfor improvement of the Vulgate
text. Hence arose the two great eclectic editions of the ninth
century: that of TAeoduIfof Orleans, who aimed at collecting
a large body of variants in the form of marginal notes ; and that
of ALuin of York, who at the express desire of the great
Emperor constructed a standard text. Alcuin’s revision was
presented to Charlemagne on Christmas Day 801 A.D., and
although his text was soon corrupted in minor hetails his work
mxks a turning-point in the history of the Vulgate. ‘Up to
the middle of the ninth century ..
. we find a distressing
jumble of the best and the worst texts existing side by side
the ancient versions mixed with the Vulgate in inextricahl:
confusion, and the books of the Bible following a differentorder
in each MS. After Alcuin all is changed. the singularitis
have been levelled, the text has become Gore equal and its
.
character more tame. . . From Alcuin’s time onward the
only Bible in use has been that of Jerome, and the ancient
versions have disappeared ’ (Berger, Yd‘ute, p. xvii).’
11. SYRIAC
Almost everything that relates to the origin and early
history of the Syriac versions is the subject of contro-
In the following account an
Three e& versy.
attempt has been made to distinguish
Sflac
between what may be regarded as
versions. proved beyond reasonable doubt, and
what must in our present state of knowledge remain only
a probability. I t will be necessary, in discussing the
earlier forms of the Syriac versions, to take the various
parts of the N T one by one, as in the case of the Old
Latin. The later Syriac versions will be described
subsequently by themselves.
The Four Gospek-About the year 420 A . D . the
Gospel was extant in Syriac in three forms, viz.-
(i.) The Peshi!tu, or Syriac Vulgate.
1 The Vulgate was first printed at Mainz between 7452 and
1456(‘Mazarin Bible’). The authoritative edition used by the
Roman Church w a s issued by Clement VIII. in I j z A critical
edition of the N T is being prepared by Bishop Wordsworthp.
and the Rev. H. J. White, of which the volume containing the
Gospels has already appeared ( U x j o y d , 1889.98).
4998
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
(ii. ) Tatian’s Diatessaron.
(iii. ) T h e ‘ Evangelibn du-ilfe$hurreshl,‘ or Old
Syriac.
A clear idea of the nature of these three documents
and their relation to one another is necessary for a right
use of the Syriac versions in the criticism of the Gospels.
(i.) The version of the N T which alone has been in
ecclesiastical use int he Syriac church since the middle
23. PeshItta. of the fifth century, is known by the
name PZshitta (or Pishi@; in the
Jacobite system of pronunciation)-Le. ‘ the simple. ’
The name Peshicta was in use as earlyas the ninth or the tenth
century; it has been conjectured that it originally served to
distinguish the Syriac Vulgate of the Old and New Testaments
from the Hexaplaric version of the OT and the Harclean of the
N T (see below, 88 30, 6r), editions which were furnished with
marginal variants and other critical apparatus.
The Peshitta is extant in many MSS, a few of which
are as old as the fifth century. All of them, however,
represent the same type of text as is found in the
niodern editions. I t was first printed by Widmanstad
(Vienna, 1555). The best edition of the Gospels is
the Tetraeuangelium published by (the late) P. E.
Pusey and G. H. Gwilliam (Oxford, 1901). A small
American edition of the N T in the Nestorian character
(New York, 1886, etc. ) gives an excellent text in a very
handy form. Following the notation of Westcott and
Hort, I shall speak of the Peshitta as Syriac Vulgate.
(ii. ) T h e Diatessaron, a harmony of the Four Gospels
composed by Tatian the pupil of Justin Martyr, at one
24. Dia- time took the place of the separate Four
Gospels in the public services of the
teesaron. Syriac-speaking .church. But a vigorous
effort to get rid of it was made by the bishops during
the first half of the fifth century, and in consequence
of this no copy of the Syriac Diatessaron is now
known to survive.
Our main extant authority for the text of the Syriac
Diatessaron is the Commentary of Ephraiml (f373).
This work is no longer extant in Syriac, but is known to
us through an Armenian translation. A few express
quotations from the original work survive in some later
Syriac commentaries on the Gospels, such as those of
the Nestorian Ish6‘dZd and the Jacobite Dionysius
BarSalibi. A complete Arabic version of the Diates-
saron, made early in the eleventh century, has been
published by Ciasca from two MSS (Rome, 1888) ; this
was not made from the Diatessaron as Ephraim knew
it, but from a later edition in which the text had been
almost wholly assimilated to the text of the Peshitta.2
I t is therefore nearly worthless for the study of the tezt
of the Diatessaron, though valuable for determining the
arrangement adopted by T a t i a r ~ . ~The Commentary of
Ephraim is quoted by the pages of a Latin rendering of
the Armenian, published in 1876 by G. Moesinger.
(iii.) Another version of the Four Gospels, distinct
from the Peshitta (or Syr.vg), was called Euangelidn
da-ML’pharrZrh2-i.e. ‘ Gospel of the Separ-
26* ‘Old ated (ones).’4 The name obviously contains
a reference to the Diatessaron, which in
contradistinction to it is also called in Syriac Euangelidn
du-MZ;hallpta, ‘ Gospel of the Mixed. ’ The title ‘ Sepa-
rated Gospels ’ would be equally applicable to the Four
1 Ephraim is oft,, spoken of as Eplrvm Sylus, and as ‘the
Deacon of Edessa. The Syriac form of the name is Afrem.
2 It is worth notice that the textual history of the Diatessaron
in the E. is largely paralleled by its history in the W., where it
is extant in Cod. Fnldensis and its copies the text being
altogether assimilated to the Vulgate. But’ there are many
indications that it bad formerly existed with an ‘Old Latin
,text. In other words, the text of the Diatessaron, so far as we
are able to trace it, was always in process of being assimilated
to the prevalent local text of the Four Gospels.
3 English translation by J. Hamlyn Hill, Thc Earliest Lzye
8YChnkt (T. & T. Clark, 1894). and (direct from the Arabic) by
H. W. Hogg in Ante-Nicene Christian LiJrary, add. vol. pp.
35-1 8 (T & T. Clark, 1697).
4 %erhaps ‘Gospel according to the Separated (Evangelists)’
is a nearer translation, the particle da being used for Kurd in the
Syriac titles of the Gospels.
4999
TEXT AND VERSIONS
Gospels as read in the Peshitta, and indeed the Peshitta
is probably intended in the passage where Evangelidn
da-M@harrlshl occurs in the canons of Rabbiila.’ On
the other hand, the Sinaitic and the Nitrian MSS both
call themselves by this name, and BarSalibi and Bar
Bahlill the lexicographer expressly quote from the
Evangelidn da-M@harrishg the reading ‘ Jesus Barab-
bas ’ in Mt. 27 17, found in the Sinaitic M S 2
Two codices of the EwangeLidn da-MZpharrPshl are at
present known to scholars, viz., the Sinai palimpsest
( S s ) , and the Nitrian MS used by Cureton ( S c ) .
The Nitrian MS, now B.M. add. 14,451, came with
the rest of the library of the Convent of S. Mary
Deipara in 1842-7 to London, where its peculiar char-
acter was shortly afterwards recognised by Cureton,
then keeper of the Oriental MSS. His edition of the
MS appeared in 1 8 5 8 , ~and from him the version came
to be known as the ‘ Curetonian.’ The Sinai palimpsest
was discovered at the Convent of S. Catherine on
Mount Sinai by Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson of Cam-
bridge in 1892, and transcribed in the following year
by the late R. L. Bensly, J. Rendel Harris, and the
present writer.
Sc may he assigned to the middle of the fifth century. It
contained the Gospels in the order hft. Mk. n Lk
that is now extant is Mt. 11-832 10 32-23 25 Li. 16;i-kt$!
1 1-423 6-7 37 14 10-1216-18 21-23 26-29 Lk. 2 48-3 16 7 33-16 IZ 17
1-2444,or less than half of the whole. Ss is erha s half a
century older than Sc. It contained the Gospeg in t i e usual
order: Mt. Mk. Lk. J n ’ only about 450 verses (i.e. about one
eighth ofthe whole) are A b altogether missing; but &any words
and lines are illegible. Most of the gaps in Cureton’s text can
now in a measure he filled ; but for the history of the text the
value of Ss lies less in those parts where it supplements Sc
than in those where the two MSS run parallel. By a com-
parison of these portions we are able to gain some idea of the
range of variation found in the codices of the ‘Old Syriac.
Since the publication of Cni-eton’s Codex in 1858, a
discussion has gone on as to the relative age of the
26. Relation Evangelidn da-MZ$harrPrh2 and the
Peshitta. The general opinion had
Of three’
formerly been that the Peshitta, much
in its present state, had existed ever since the earliest
ages of the Syriac-speaking church. The defenders
of that opinion rested their case upon the common
reception of the Peshitta by all the sects into which
Syriac Chistendom has been divided from the end
of the fifth century, the exclusive use of the Peshitta by
Syriac ecclesiastical writers, and the alleged conservatism
of Orientals. The first of these arguments proves,
indeed, what is universally acknowledged-that the
Peshitta had already attained a position of exclusive
authority by the latter part of the fifth century. But
the publication of a mass of early Syriac works during
the last fifty years has materially weakened the second
argument. The decisive moment is the episcopate of
Rabbiila, bishop of Edessa from 411-435 A.D. From
that time the N T quotations of Syriac writers are all
influenced by the Peshitta, beginning with Isaac of
Antioch (f460). But the quotations in Syriac writers
earlier than Rabbela agree with the known peculiarities
of the Diatessaron and the Eu. da-M++han-t!she^. T h e
text of the Diatessaron itself, as known to us from
Ephraim’s Commentary and the few but express quota-
tions of later writers, very closely resembled that of the
B v . da-ilfiphuurPshl without being identical with it.
1 The codices of the Psalter in the Peshitta bear th.: title
‘ The Book of the Praises of David da-NZjhawZsh8. May not
the last word be taken to mean ‘in separate (Psalms) ‘ 7
2 The Evangelion da-MZ#havZs/& could not have got its
name in contradistinction to the Peshiffa. The only piece of
evidence which seems to suggest this unlikely conclusion is the
above-quoted statement ahout Jesus Bara66as, which is repeated
word for word by Barglibi and Bar Bahltil. Probably there-
fore, they each took it from some older scholion, in which the
‘Old Syriac’ was contrasted not with the Syriac Vulgate, hut
with the Diatessaron. It is possible that Evangelion da-
MZ#hawZshP in Rabhola’s canons (Overbeck, 220 3) means any
MS of the Four Gospels as opposed to a MS of the Diatessaron.
3 It had been already in print for ten years. Three leaves of
the codex found their way to Berlin, and are now numbered
Orirnt. Quart. 528 in the Royal Library.
5-
 TEXT' AND VERSIONS
The writings in which the Diatessaron or theEv. da-Mejhar-
reshB are used incli.de the Acts of Judas Thoiirns (3rd cent.),
the Doctrine of Ada'ui (4th cent.), the Homilies of Aphraates
(337-345), the genuine writings of Ephraim (t373), the writings
of Cyrillona Z.f,( qc'o), the Syriac Doctrine of the Apostles
published by Cureton (4th cent.). The Syriac translations of
Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History and Thophania (made be-
fore 411) also show the influence of the Ev. da-MephaweshL'
and even Jacob of Serug (6th cent.) follows the Diatessaron id
his Homily on the Lord's Prayer.
The witness of E:phraim was long claimed for the Peshirta
against the Ea. da-MCpkarrZshPon the authority of commen-
taries and homilies which were printed as Ephraim's in the
Roman edition (r737-43), but on insufficient evidence. Ephraim's
genuine writings which include more than 350 homilies show
no trace of distiktively Peshitta readings (F. C. Burdtt, S.
Ephraim's Quotationsfrom the Gospel, Cambridge, 1901).
T o Rabbtila is due both the publication of the
Peshitta and the suppression of the Diatessaron. At
the beginning of his episcopate (41I A . u. ) ' he trans-
lated by the wisdom of God that was in him the N T
from Greek into Syriac, because of its variations,
accurately just as it was' (L+e of itfur Rabbula. in
Overbeck. 1 7 2 r B J ) . And in his canons he ordered
'that in every church there should be a copy of the
En. dCz-MQharr&hl, and that it should be read ' (Over-
beck, 2203). When we consider that up to the time
of RabbEla the Gospel quotations in Syriac works never
exhibit the peculiarities of the Peshitta, whilst after the
time of Rabbiila they uniformly agree with it, there can
be little doubt that the translation of the N T prepared
by RabbCila was the Peshirta itse1f.l
The Peshitta is thus an edition of the Ev.da.342phar-
r&shP, revised into closer conformity with the Greek,
and published by authority with a view of superseding
both the Diatessaron and the then current Syriac texts
of the Four Gospels.
The method by which the new edition was propagated
may be learnt from Theodoret, bishop of the adjoining
see of Cyrrhus, who ' swept up more than two hundred
copies of the Diatessaron in the churches of his diocese
and introduced the Four Gospels in their place ' (quoted
in Wright's Syria6 Literature, 9). The older forms
of the Ev. du-iCftpharrPshi?seem throughout the fourth
century to have been much less used than the Diates-
saron, so that when the Peshitta was substituted for the
Diatessaron in the public services, it practically had no
rivals. Neither :js nor Sc show any signs of having
beep prepared for church use. In a word, the Diates-
saron was condeinned; the Ev. da-Mfpharr2shd was
antiquated.
The internal character of the Peshitta, as compared
with that of the 13% da-M@harr&hl confirms the view
of their relation to one another which has been given
above.
I. The style of the Ev. da-M&harr&ht gives an
impression of great age. All the later Syriac versions,
such as the Harclean, are marked by excessive literal-
ness ; but the Ezi. da2'h2?jjharr2shi3 is less conventional
and more idiomatic than the Peshitta. Certain particles
also and idioms :ire found in the Ev. du-iMqpharrfshl
which are avoided in the Peshitta and later Syriac
writingsa
2. T h e subscriptions at the end of each Gospel in
the En. du-MZphurr.sh2 contain no more than 'Here
endeth the Go.rpel of Mark,' or 'of Luke,' as the case
may be. But to render EhayyhXtov K U T ~ M. more
exactly the Peshitta has ' The [hoZy] Gospel, thepreach-
ing of M.' Moreover, it is added in almost all codices
of the Peshitta that Matthew composed his Gospel ' in
Hebrew in Palestine,' Mark ' in Latin a t Rome,' Luke
'in Greek at AIexandria the Great,' and John 'in
Greek at Ephesu.:.' Similar statements are found in
some Greek MSS of the Gospels. This peculiar render-
-
1 See-F. C. Burkitt, $. E?hraiy's,Quotat$ns, 57.
0 " . .
aucn are me ocxasionai use or me copura EO inrronuce toe
apodosis of a conditional sentence (e.g., Lk. 1245f: Ss Sc) and
the occnrrence of the word 'adh, ' forsooth,' which is met with
only in the oldest Eiyriac literature and has been consistently
cx#,ungcd in Sc by a corrector.
5mr
TEXT AND VERSIONS
ing of K U T ~ . and the insertion of these pseudo-biblio-
graphical notices, when contrasted with the simplicity
of the Ev. du-i!d&harr2shi, are by themselves enough
to stamp the Peshitta as a later recension.
3. Although Ss and Sc usually agree closely with
one another against the Peshiya text, and sometimes
even stand alone together against all other critical
authorities, they often differ in important readings.'
But the MSS of the Peshitta hardly vary except in ortho-
graphical matters and other trifles. It is difficult to re-
concile this fact with the priority of the Peshitta. If the
two versions had existed side by side during the third
century, it is not easy to see why the codices of the 13v.
da-Jri&pharrPshe^should have been honoured by revision
from the Greek, whilst the codices of the Peshiga were
untouched.
The Peshitta has too many points of resemblance
to the Ev. da-iW?phan+shd to be considered an in-
dependent translation from the Greek. W e must
therefore regard the Peshitta as a revision of the
previously existing Ev. da-iW2phnrrZsh2, just as the
Latin Vulgate was a revision of an Old Latin text.
For that reason Westcott and Hort quote the Peshitta
as Syr.vg. The agreement of Ss and Sc may be
conveniently indicated by Syr. vt. or the ' Old Syriac. '
The Greek text of the Antiochian revision (see
7, 9) is usually followed by the Peshitta. where it
differs from the Old Syriac ; but to this rule there are
some exceptions (e.g., Mt. 11 19 22 13 Jn. 118). T h e
revision of the Syriac N T was therefore made from a
Greek MS such as Cod. Ephraemi ( C ) which retained
some non-Antiochian readings in the midst of a funda-
mentally Antiochian text. I t will be remembered that
Rabbula was the friend of Cyril of Alexandria, in whose
quotations much the same state of things is found. At
the same time there are readings in Syr.vg which
definitely reflect the local Antiochian tradition (e.g.,the
punctuation of Jn. 527f:).
The only theory to account for the textual facts which has
been advanced by defenders of the priority of Syr.vg to the
Ev. da-MZjharrBshP is that, on the suppression of the Diates-
saron, a sudden demand may have arisen for copies of the Four
Gospels. Scribes would then have made imperfect copies, full
of phrases taken from Tatian's Harmony, two of which survive
in Ss and Sc. This theoryaccounts for the marked resemblance
of the Ev. da-Me;dhavrCsh8to the Diatessaron on the one hand
and to the Peshicta on the other. I t does not account, however:
for the numerous instances where Ss and Sc (or one of them)
have a reading which is neither that of the Diatessaron nor of the
Peship. Thus in Lk. 1721 ('the kingdom of God is ivrbs
Gpiu ') the Peshirta has within you, the Diatessaron has i n j u w r
hart, but Ss and Sc haveanrongyou. Othernotahlc instances
are ,Mk. 1050 Lk. 4 29.
No hypothesis about the origin and mutual relations of earlv
Syriac texts can stand, which does not account for the crucid
Fact that Mk. ends at 1 6 8 in Ss, although the 'last twelve
verses ' are found in the Diatessaron as well as in the Peshicta.
Of our two codices of Syr.vt S s is in every respect a
better text than Sc. The discovery of S , has justified
Hort's conjecture that Sc represents a form of the Old
Syriac which has suffered ' irregular revision ' from the
Greek.2 The best evidence for this is afforded by the
presence in SC of several conflate readings (e.$. , Mt. 6 18
Jn. 424).
The fact of this revision once established, it is reason-
able to assign to the reviser the many passages where
words and verses which are absent from Ss have
been added in Sc. Thus the episode of the bloody
sweat, the missing clauses of the Lord's Prayer in
Lk., the long interpolation after Mt. 2028, and the
verse Mt. 2144, are all found in Sc, though absent from
ss. The process of revision, however, was by no means
:borough, for Sc agrees with Ss in omitting hlt. 162 3
1721 I811 Jn. 5 3 4, e t c 3
jc
1 The most striking instance is [Mk.Il69-20, which is read by
hut omitted bv Ss.
2 Hort. 118. .
3 In Lk. 10 41 42 Ss has the shprter reading found also in all
genuine Old Latin texts, viz., Martha Martha, Mary has
chosen the better part,' etc., omitting th; y i p after ' Mary ' in
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
I t might have been suspected that Ss had been corrected to a
Greek text such as that of B by the excision of all these passages.
But this suspicion is shown to he groundless by the fact that Ss
contains several interpolations (notably one at the end of Lk.
234e) which are especially characteristic of the Old Syriac,
though found in no Greek MS. Had the passages which are
wanting in S s been deliberately expunged owing to their absence
from certain Greek MSS, these other passages would have been
rejected along with the rest.
T h e crucial problem in the history of the Old Syriac
is its relation to the Diatessaron. There are two views
%lation conceivable.
I. That the Diatessaron was the
Of ‘OldSF*’ original form in which the Gospel was
Diatess‘ circulated in Syriac, and that the
Evangelion da-MephavreshP (Syr. vt) was a later trans-
lation from the Greek ; but the translation was much
influenced by the text of the already existing Syriac
Diatessaron.
2. That Syr.vt was the original form of the Gospel
in Syriac ; and that the Diatessaron was an independent
work, originally composed in Greek (or Latin), but
translated into Syriac as far as possible in the wording
of Syr. vt, which it eventually superseded for church use.
A third theory, that the Diatessaron was a purely
Syriac work, later than Syr.vt and compiled exclusively
from it, can no longer be held since the discovery of the
Sinai palimpsest.
The Diatessaron undoubtedly contained extracts from the
‘last twelve verses’ of Mk.,l which are absent from Ss and
therefore from the earliest form of the Evang-eii& da-Mejkar-
res@. If the Diatessaron had been entirely based upon
Syr.vt, we should have to assume that Syr.vt had been already
revised by 170-180A.D. the date of Tatian’s return to the East.
Besides, the theory tba; the Diatessaron was a Syriac work fails
to account for the Latin Codex Fu(densis and allied documents.
An adequate discussion of the other two theories
would far exceed the limits of this article, although it
conclu- depends upon the conclnsion reached
whether we are to place the Old Syriac ‘In
the middle or end of the second century.
I t must suffice to say here, that the scanty historical
notices of the early Syriac-speaking church contain
nothing contrary to the first view (viz., that the
Diatessaron preceded the EvangeZiGn da-Mepharreshl)
and much that confirms
On this hypothesis we may conjecturally date the E v .
da-Mepharveshe‘ about zoo A . D. and connect it with the
mission of Pdiit, who was ordained bishop of Edessa by
Serapion of Antioch.
The arguments in favour of the second view are chiefly
based on the text of Ss. Some of the readings character-
istic of that M S are quite contrary in tendency to what
we otherwise know of Syriac Christianity, and that such
a text should exist at all is a remarkable testimony to
the essential faithfulness of the translator to the Greek
text before him. T h e Diatessaron much nearer reflects
the tendencies of the time. In fact, some things which
we know to have stood in the Diatessaron almost read
like a deliberate protest against the text of Syr.vt as
represented by the Sinai palimpsest.
Tatian held Encratite views and it accords with them that he
left out the genealogies from [be Diatessaron, and that Joseph
is never called husband of Mary. This course is also followed
in Sc (except so far as concerns the genealogies), and it harmonises
with all we know of the Syriac-speaking church in the third
century. But in Ss this tendency is altogether absent to such
an extent that the last clause of Mt. 116 is rendered ‘j&seph, to
w k o m was betrotked Mary fhe V i & % begaf
, jesus wkick is
called Christ.’3 Certain statements in Aphraates’ Homily on
n. 42, as well as the words about the ‘something necessary’ in
v. 4% In Sc the missing words are supplied to v. 41 ; hut no
narticle is added after ‘ Maw’ in v. 42. and thus the reviser’s
hand is betrayed.
. I
1 The same mosaic of Mt. 28 Mk. 16 and Lk. 24 is found in
ju?d as in the Arabic Diatessaron. Aphraates 120 mentions
Christ’s session at the right hand of the Father (Mk. 16 19)
immediately after quoting Mt. 28 za
2 The public reading of the Diatessaron at Edessa in early
times to the apparent exclusion of the Four Gospels, is implied
in the Doctrine o f A d d a i 36. For the date and historical
-
value of this work. see L. 1. Tixeront. Les Uripinrs de rEeZzie
d’Edesse esp.
3 [On ;he text of this verse cp MARY, $ q ( a ) . l
5003
TEXT AND VERSIONS
the Genealogy of our Lord, and some comments preserved by
Barvalibion Mt. 116 prove that these readings of Ss are not mere
peculiaritie.. of an isolated MS. On the other hand, Sc through-
out the whole of the first chapter of Matthew’s gospel presents
a corrected text (except I It. 120, ‘to thee ’). The attempt which
has been made to represent Ss as an heretical codex rests on no
sure foundation and the natural inference is that Syr.vt in its
original form was characterised by a primitive innocence of
offence in this matter (see Lk.2 4R).
The arguments which go to prove that the Ar-
menian and Bthiopic versions were originally made
from the Old Syriac are indicated elsewhere (sw 3 6 5 ).
I t may be remarked that there is nothing to connect
these versions with the Diatessaron. But if, as seems
most probable, they were made from the EvangeliGn
da-MepharreshP, this circumstance affords another proof
of its antiquity. If the Evangelion da-&fe$harreshP were
a novelty, hardly holding its own against the ancient
and popular Diatessaron, it would scarcely have been
chosen in preference to the Diatessaron for missionary
translations.
On the first publication of Sc in 1858, Cureton brought
forward arguments to prove that the Gospel of Mt. in Sc
represented the original ‘ Hebrew ’ Gospel whilst the other
Gospels were mere translations from the Greek. This wild
theory found few defenders and is almost forgotten. But it
was based on a perception that there is a difference of style
between the various Gospels in the Ev. da-MepharrcsJzd.
Lately Dr. A. Hjelt has collected the indications which show
that the translation of the four Gospels does not come from
the same hand, Mt. being the earliest and Lk. the latest to he
rendered into Syriac (Die aiisyrische Evange?ienu6ersetmnK,
Leipsic, igor). The theory is attractive and may very well
rest upon a basis of fact ; at the same time too much stress
should not he laid upon irregularity of rendering as a proof of
composite authorship. Only those who have tried to make a
pedantically consistent translation of the Gospels can realise
with what difficulty consistency is attained.
No MS of the Old Syriac version of Acts or of the
Pauline epistles is known to have survived. That the
29. acts and Peshitta is not the original form of the
Syriac version in these books also is
Epistles. proved by the quotations in Aphraates,
and from the commentaries of Ephraim. These com-
mentaries are preserved only ‘in the ancient Armenian
translation, having no doubt fallen out of favour when
the text on which they were based had been superseded
by the Peshitta. In using these commentaries great
care is necessary, as the biblical text appears sometimes
to have been assimilated to the Armenian Vulgate. The
quotations of Aphraates from the Pauline epistles are
many; but those from Acts unfortunately cover only
five verses.
The almost complete loss of the Old Syriac version, except
for the Gospels, causes a serious gap in the apparatus of critical
authorities for the text of the NT. It can be to some little
extent sup lied from the Armenian. Readings of the Armenian
Vulgate wkch differ from the ordinary Greek text especially
if they are supported by the Peshitta, may he considered with
some confidence to have been derived from the lost Old Syriac.
T h e CathoZic Epistles and the Apocalypse formed no
part of the Old Syriac versi0n.l In the Peshitta this
defect is partially supplied by a translation of James,
I Peter and I John, in agreement with the usage of
Antioch as represented by Chrysostom ; but to this day
the Syriac Vulgate does not include the Apocalypse or
the minor Catholic epistles.
T h e Peshirta was firmly established for ecclesiastical
use in the Syriac-speaking church at the time of the
30. Later Nestorian schism, and has continued to be
S ~ a cexclusively used by the Nestorian com-
Among the Jacobites (or Mono-
versions. munity.
physite branch of the Syrians), however, two
successive attempts were made to render into Syriac the
full canon and the current text of the later Greek-speak-
ing churches.
What appears to have been a revision of the N T
1 Addai 4 6 ; ‘The Law and the Prophets and the Gospel
... .
and the Epistles of Paul . . and the Acts of the twelve
Apostles-these writings shall ye read in the churchei of Christ,
and besides these K“ shall read nothing else. Neither in
Aphraates nor in t e genuine works of Ephraim are there
any quotations from Apoc. or Cath. epp.
5004
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
Peshitta, supplemented by those books of the Greek
canon which were lacking in Syriac, was made in 508
A.D. for Philoxeinus, bishop of Mabbog.
Whether any part of this revision of the Peshitta survives is
doubtful :1 hut there is good reason to believe that the supple-
mental version of :I Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude, which waq
first published by E;. Pococke in 1630, and is generally bound up
with modern editions of the Peshitta, belongs to the original
Philoxenian. A M S of the Apocalypse in the same version has
been discovered by Gwynn, who has published the text wlth
full Prolegomena and crltical notes (Dublin, 1897).
In the year 616 Thomas of Heraclea (Harkel), bishop
of MabMg, made at Alexandria an elaborate revision of
the Philoxenian which still survives in several MSS and
is called the Harclean Version. I t was edited by Joseph
White at Oxford in 1778-1803from a slightly imperfect
M S ; but the missing portion of Hebrews was a t length
supplied from a Cambridge codex by Bensly in 1889.
It is not improbable that the version of the Apocalypse
published in 1627 by De Dieu, and now commonly
printed with the P e s h i p , is a part of the work of Thomas
of Heraclea .
The text of the Harclean version is remarkable for its excessive
literalness,a and for the critical notes with which it is furnished.
These notes contain the various readings of two (or three) Greek
MSS collated by Thomas at Alexandria. In Acts these notes
are of real importance as one of the MSS must have contained
a ‘Western’ text xnuci like that of Codex Be==. The text of the
Harclean version itself as distinguished from these alternative
or additional readings: is almost invariably that of the later
Greek MSS.
T h e Syriac versions hitherto described have all been
in the ’ classical ’ Edessene idiom. I t is customary
31. Palestinimi also to reckon under ‘ Syriac Versions ’
the surviving biblical fragments in the
version ‘ Palestinian ’ dialect.
T h e Aramaic language is divided into two branches,
the classical Edessene being the main example of the
Eastern Aramaic, whilst Palmyrene and the various types
of Jewish Aramaic (including Samaritan) belong to the
Western branch. T h e dialect in which the Christian
version described in this section is written is a variety
of the Western Aramaic, almost identical with that of
the later Galilaean Jews3 Its linguistic interest, there-
fore, is very great, for although it is a somewhat literal
translation from the Greek, the language in which it is
written comes nearest of all known Christian dialects to
:hat spoken by Jesus and the apostles. See A RAMAIC,
7 (col. 283).
T h e surviving documents can be traced to three
sources : ( I ) the Malkite convent of S. Elias on tkie
Black Mountain in the district of the D u r n e a r Antioch ;
( 2 ) the convent of S. Catherine on Mt. Sinai; ( 3 ) a
community, or communities, of Malkites settled in Egypt.
The MSS included under (I) appear to have been bought for
the convent of S.Mary Deipara in the Nitrian desert in the
thirteenth century after the sack of Antioch by Bibars the
Mameluke Sultan.’ They include the Vatican lectionary and
the London fragments published by Land. The S. Petersburg
fragmentspublished by Land, which were brought by Tischendorf
from the East, are almost certainly to be added to the MSS of
class (2). Those of class (3) include the hook of occasional offices
now at the British Museum (Or. 4951), the Pruxu~ostolosedited
by Mrs. Lewis, and the fragments from the Cairo Geniza now in
the Bodleian and the Cambridge University library.
For the Gospels we have fragments of four continuous
codices :-
I . Land’s Prttojolifunus antiquiur (7th cent,): z. Land’s
Petro#oZiiinnus recentiur (8th cent.), two leaves of which
1 See Wiseman, Horre Syriacrp 17a n.
2 The same torturing of the $ria= idiom in order to express
every particle 01’ the Greek is found in the contemporary
translation of the Hexaplar text of the LXX by Paul of Tella
(see 5 61).
Dalman, Gram. dts jlzd.-PaZ&t. A r a m d i s J , 33-40. The
only locality in Palestine with which any of our documents can
be definitelyconnected is ‘Abdd, a small town in lat. 32’ long.
p”,almost equally distant from affa, NBhlus, and Jerushem-
I.P., not far from the frontier ietween Judza and Samaritan
territozy.
4 TheMalkites(or ‘King’sParty’)arethose OrientalChristians
who did not become Monophysites or Nestorians, hut remained
in communion with Constantinople. The district of the Dux (rb
Aodt) is mentioned by Anna Comnena (Alexias, 13 12).
5-5
TEXT AND VERSIONS
appear to be still at Sinai in Cod. &Y. 32 ;1 3. One leaf of
B.M. Add. 14,(p, published hy Land (8th cent.); 4. Fragments
of Mt. and Lk. from B.M. Add. 14,664, published by Land
(11th cent.). Besides these there are three complete Gospel
lectionaries one at the Vatican and two at Sinai, besides
fragments df at least two others at Sinai and London, all dating
from the eleventh century. The Vatican lectionary (Vat. Syr.
xix) has been well edited by Lagarde (Evangelinrium Hierosoly-
mitunum 1892). The Sinai lectionaries, together with the
readings Af the Vatican lectionary, were edited by ME.Lewis
and Mrs. Gihson in 1899.
The rest OF the NT is hut im rfectly preserved. The very
ancient Bodleian fragments of tK Pauline epistles have been
edited by G. H. Gwilliam (Orford, 18 3 6 , and a small frag-
ment of Galatians from Sinai by J. R. g d s . Land has edited
Acts146-13 from an ancient lectionary (see 9 62). In 1895
Mrs. Lewis bought in Cairo a late MS (? 12th cent.) containing
lections from all parts of the Bible except the Gospels, and in
conjunction with Mrs. Gibson and Dr. Nestle published the text
in 1897 as Studiu Sinaitica, 6. The lections differ from those
in Land’s much older lectionary, and Mrs. Lewis’ MS is dis-
tinctly stated not to have come from Sinai. It may have belonged
to the same community that owned the very late hIS of the
Liturgy of the Nile, edited by G . Margoliouth (JRAS, Oct.
1896). This Liturgy contains a lesson from Acts 1G : but the
text is nothing more than an adaptarion of the Peshitta to the
Palestinian dialect.
T h e Palestinian documents exhibit a mixed text.
T h e influence of the Peshitta is often apparent ; but in
the main the Greek is closely followed, so that even
such Semitic names as ’IquoOs and Zipwv are transliter-
ated Zsiis and Sim’n, not Yfshd‘ (or Zsh6’)and Shim‘&.
T h e syntax, moreover, is so much assimilated to the
Greek as to render the Palestinian version a very unsafe
guide in the reconstruction of the original Aramaic of
Gospel phrases.
T h e origin of this cmious literature is still obscure ;
hut the present writer has given reasons for connecting
it with the efforts made by Justinian in the sixth
century to extirpate the Samaritan religion and by
Hcraclius early in the seventh century to harass the
Jews. An earlier date than the sixth century is not
suggested either by the general course of history or
by the character of the surviving documents. F. C.
Burkitt’s art. in /ozrm. of Th. Studies, 2 1 8 3 8 , con-
tains a f h bibliography of the Christian Palestinian
literature.
111. COPTIC AND OTHER VERSIONS
-.. is the stronghold of ‘ non-Western’ texts. T h e
Egypt
determination of the age of the Egyptian
3a.
translation: versions is therefore a problem of con-
_._I_ siderable interest for the general history
ame. of the text of the NT.
I n Egypt ‘ the progress of Christianity was for a long
time confined within the limits of a single city, which
was itself a foreign colony; and till the close of the
second century the predecessors of Demetrius were the
only prelates of the Egyptian church. Three bishops
were consecrated by the hands of Demetrius, and the
number was increased to twenty by his successor
Heracles. T h e body of the natives, a people dis-
tinguished by sullen inflexibility of temper, entertained
the new doctrine with coldness and reluctance; and
even in the time of Origen it was rare to meet with an
Egyptian who had surmounted his early prejudices in
favour of the sacred animals of his country. As soon,.
indeed, as Christianity ascended the throne, the zeal of
those barbarians obeyed the prevailing impulsion ; the
cities of Egypt were filled with bishops, and the deserts
of Thebais swarmed with hermits.’$ T h e date here
assigned for the spread of Christianity in the country is
borne out by the Life of S. Pachomius (I I ) , which
puts the repentance of the nations as coming to pass
after the persecutions of Diocletian and Maximin.
Pachomius, the founder of organised monastic life, born
1 The Sinai leaves are published in MIS. Lewis’s Cut. of
Syn’mMSS, App. pp. 118-120. They exactlyagree in size and
character with the leaves of Land’s Petyogolitanus recedior.
2 Bishop of Alexandria, 189-233A.D.
8 Bury’s Gibbon, 260, following Eiirychius (AnnaL 1333) and
Orig. Cels. 1757.
5006
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
in 285, was converted early in the fourth century, and
established the Tabennitic monastery in Upper Egypt
in 322. Such a community could not long be without
the Scriptures in the vernacular, so that the earliest
version in Egyptian cannot be later than the first quarter
of the fourth century.
There is very little reason for placing it much earlier.
The notices in Eus. H B 641 of the ' Egyptian ' Alex-
andrians who suffered during the Decian persecution
contain nothing to indicate that they formed a separate
community, with a translated Bible and Liturgy. The
Life of S. Antony is generally quoted as implying the
existence of a Coptic version in the third century ; but
it is not easy to say how much may be built upon the
details of the early part of Antony's career, as related
by his biographer.' The evidence of the Pistis Sophia
also is indecisive as to date. The Pistis Sqbhia is a
Gnostic work of the latter half of the third century,2
which survives in a very ancient Sahidic MS.8 Most of
the allusions in it to the Old and New Testaments are
loose and paraphrastic. But several of the Psalms are
quoted by number in full, almost word for word with the
Sahidic version. W e cannot, however, certainly infer
from this that Sahidic is the original language of the
book. The Sahidic version must be older than the
Pistis Sophia as we have it ; but the Psalms in question,
which are all put into the mouths of the various apostles
to illustrate the Gnostic teaching of Jesus, may have been
added by the Sahidic translator with the view of com-
mending the book to orthodox readers; their strict
fidelity to the biblical text shows quite a different spirit
from the free invention of the rest of the book.
As many as five or six Coptic dialects have been
distinguished.by modern scholars ; but from the point
33. Three of view of textual criticism the Coptic
versions. versions fall into three divisions :- the
Sahidic, the Fayyumic, and the Bohaivic.
The Sahidic (Sdidic) is the version of Upper Egypt (in
Arabic e;r-?a'td) ; it was formerly sometimes called the
Thebaic version. T h e Fayyiimic version? formerly
called ' Bashmuric,' is represented chiefly by documents
coming from the Fayyiini ; to this version belong also
the biblical fragments in the ' Middle Egyptian '
dialect, as in text they agree with the Fayyiimic,
whatever the relation between the dialects may be.
The fragment of a very ancient MS of the Catholic
epp. in the 'Akhmimic' dialect must be reckoned
among Sahidic authorities for a similar reason. Some
of the more ancient Sahidic MSS are Grzeco-Egyptian
bilinguals, the Greek occupying the page on the left
hand of the open book.
T h e version now in ecclesiastical use among all the
Copts, or Christian Egyptians, is called by scholars
the ' Bohairic.' This version was formerly named
' Coptic ' and ' Memphitic ' ; but the latter term i s now
known to be inaccurate, whilst 'Coptic' is equally
applicable to Sahidic or any other Egyptian dialect.
The term Bohairic comes from the Coptic Grammar of
Athanasius, Bishop of C o s ( & % )in the Thebaidduring the
eleventh century. Athanasius recognised three dialects,
v i a . , 'Cairene Coptic, which is also that of Upper
'
1 Antony died at an advanced age in 356. The received
date of his birth, viz. 250 A . D . appears to depend upon the
fact that shortly before his deaih he claimed to be 105 years
old, but such statements from the mouth of illiterate men are
rarely to be trusted. S. Antony could neither read nor write,
and c y l d not speak Greek. My book ' he is reported to have
said my book is the Book of Nature (;i&hrc TOY ycyov6sov),
and'that is present whenever I wish to read the words of God '
(Evagrius, ap. Migne, 40 1249). The statements in the Life of
S. Antony ($5 z and 3), even if we accept the details of the
story, imply no more than that fwo isdated sayinps of Jesus
were forcibly brought to S. Antony's mind, and upon these he
built his whole theological system. Many illiterate Roman
Catholics, who may have never heard the Gospels except in
Latin, know that Christ said 'Sell that thqu hast and give to
the poor,' and ' Be not anxious for your life.
2 See Harnack, TU vii. 2 9 4 8 ; Amelineau, Pistis Sop7zia.
3 Both Harnack and Amelineau hold that Greek was the
original language of the Pisfis Sophia.
5007
TEXT AND VERSIONS
Egypt ; Bohairic Coptic, which is named from t h e
Bohaira ; and Bushmuric Coptic, which is named from
the BushmGr.' The Bushmuric dialect had already
died out in the time of Athanasius, and it does not
appear that the Bible had ever been translated into it.
The ' Bohaira' ( L e . , ' L a k e ' ) is not, as is sometimes
stated, the Arabic for Lower Egypt ( e l - W a j h eGBagn')
or for the Egyptian sea-coast ; it is a district near
Alexandria between Lake Mareotis and the W. arm of
the Nile.2 The Bohairic version is therefore almost
certainly of Alexandrian origin. T h e dialect in which
it is written became, later, the eccZesiasticaZ language
of Cairo ; but this change occurred only after Coptic
had ceased to be*the speech of the people in Lower
Egypt, and it was probably caused by the removal of
the Coptic patriarch from Alexandria to Cairo.
T h e earliest surviving codices of the Bohairic N T of
which the date is known with certainty are of the
twelfth century, though some fragments are probably a s
early as the ninth.3 They are often accompanied by an
Arabic translation ; but there is no instance of a Grzeco-
Bohairic MS. All appear to present the same type of
text, the chief variation being the presence or absence
of certain interpolations derived from the great vulgates
of the East-Le., the 'Antiochian' Greek text and the
Peshitta.l
The Bohairic versiop was known in Europe for a
considerable Deriod before any form of the Sahidic. Jt
was long assumed to have been t h e
34. age of
Bohairic and earliest version of the N T in any
Egyptian dialect, and this opinion is still
sahidic. maintained-e.p.. " . bv, A. C. Headlam
in the fourth edition of Scrivener's ' Introduction.' Many
scholars, however, consider the Bohairic to be an
altogether later recension. The most thoroughgoing
exponent of this view is Guidi, whose argument in t h e
Nachrichten von der K. Ges. der Wissenschaften.
Gottingen, 1885, pp. 45-52, is reproduced in t h e
following paragraphs.
Guidi considers that the use of the various Coptic
dialects as literary languages was in great part a re-
sction against the foreign Greek element. The true
Egyptians hated foreigners and Alexandrians, and the
diffusion of Christianity would be favoured rather thab
retarded by the dislike of the Imperial Roman authority
which was persecuting it.6 W e may add that this
dislike did not cease when the Empire became
Christian. When the Emperors were Arian, Egypt
was Orthodox ; when the Emperors became Orthodox,
Egypt became Monophysite.
T h e foreign and Greek element was comparatively
strong in Lower and Middle Egypt; but in Upper
Egypt it was weaker, and so the native Egyptian.
characteristics made their presence felt more quickly
there in any new movement. Hence it is that the first
beginnings of Coptic literature are found in Upper
Egypt (Brhere also, for analogous reasons, Coptic
maintained itself as a living language longer than in the
Delta). These early products of Egyptian Christianity,
whether originals or translations, contain a purely
Egyptian element. Such, for example, are the Pistis
Sophia, the Bruce papyrus, and other Gnostic writings,
all of which show traces of the ancient beliefs and
1 The original Arabic text is given by Quatremsre
Rlcherzhes 21. A later form of Athanasius' statement i;
given by &ern 2.x A%K. Sfiache, 1623 (1878), in which the
Bohairic is c l a h e d as the Cairene dialect, and the Sahidic i s
raid not to be current N. of Minieh. EZ-BushmPr,not Bashmar
is the Arabic name of a district near Damietta (Yaktit 1634).
2 The modern BehPru (Yakat 1514).
.. 1.ord Crawford's
3 In
. -
~ ~~~~ ~Catena (Parham hfS 102). edited b v
~
Lagarde, the exposition is translated from Greek writers ; b i t
the Gospel text is that of the Bohairic version. This MS is
dated 888 A . D . A facsimile is given in Kenyon's Inhvdwcfiorr.
4 See the passages in square brackets in Lagarde, Die V i e r
Evawelien brabisch (1864), and the critical notes which belong
to them.
5 Diocletian's action in Egypt was not directed against the
Christians alone (cp Gibbon, 1363-365).
5008
 translations of the Bible from the Greek and of many
other writings. I t was probably a t the same period that
popular Egiptian legen&, such as the death b f Joseph,
were adapted into Bohairic from the Sahidic.l
Coptic is generally supposed to have become a
literary language somewhat earlier ; but that is not
supported by historical evidence, nor can it be proved
from the documents ive possess. These show us that
down to the sixth or the seventh century the official
written language of Egypt was Greek. With this
accords the fact that the most ancient writings connected
with Egyptian Christianity-the original of the Bruce
papyrus, the Life of S. Macarius, the Rules of S.
Pachornius, etc.-were all in Greek. Antony did not
know Greek; yet the Coptic letters attributed to him
and published by Mingarelli (pp. 198, 201)are trans-
lated from the Greek.2
An additional reason for assigning a late date to the
Bohairic version and literature is the rapid decay both
of the Coptic language and of Christianity in Lower
Egypt after the Arab invasion. By the tenth century
Coptic was almost as dead a language in the Delta as
Greek (see Schwartzms, Copt. Gram. I O ) , though as
late as the time of Makrizl, in the fifteenth century, the
Sahidic dialect was still used in Upper Egypt. T h e
entire absence of native exegetical literature is also in-
consistent with the assumed antiquity of the Bohairic.
In Lagarde's Catena more than thirty ' Fathers' are
quoted- all Greek. Can one imagine (to take a
parallel from another Eastern church) a Syriac Catena
on the Gospels without one extract from Ephraim or
Philoxenus or Jacob of Seriig?
The three chief forms of the Egyptian NT-the
Sahidic, the Fayyiimic, and the Bohairic, are not
36. Three independent. A comparison of the
passages where all three forms are extant
versions brings to light three peculiarities of the
Bohairi,: :
I. Greater faithfulness to the Greek. T h e Bohairic
contains a representation of nearly all the particles of
the original, which are often omitted by the other
Egyptian versions ; it. also often reverts to the Greek
order of the words.
2 . A dzyerent choice of Greek words lo be fransZifer-
aied. The Bohairic: is especially distinguished by
vernacular renderings for abstract substantives.
Perhaps words such as d u m , Xdprs, uoq5la. C.$ouuia,
had acquired a heretical and ' Gnostic ' signification.
3. Where the Bohairic foZZms a d $ k n t Greek
reading from the others i f is almost always a specz@caZ&
'AZexaadrian' readinx. T h e textual character of the
Bohairic thus fits in with the date assigned to it by
1 See F. Robinson, Coptic Afioc. Gosficls,T. and S. 4 2 , p. xvi
9 Guidi, 51.
5009
preserves in the Gospels an Egyptian text somewhat
older than itself. Unfortunatelv. the date of the
Fayyiimic version is unknown, and its relation to the
Sahidic obscure.'
The 'Antiochian' Greek text seems never to have
influenced Egypt-at least not before the tenth century.
Freedom from specifically Antiochian readings is a
characteristic of all forms of the Egyptian NT. T h e
relation of the Egyptian versions to the ' Western ' text
is more complicated. All Egyptian texts are pre-
dominantly non- Western ; but a few very striking
'Western ' readings and interpolations are found in the
S a h i d k 2 yet not as a rule those which were most widely
spread in later texts3 In Acts also, there is in tlie
Sahidic a decided ' Western' element ; but it is by no
means so large as that, for instance, of the margin of
the Harclean Syriac. Blass (p. 29) puts the Sahidic
among the numerous ' mixed ' texts of Acts, and it seems
probable that it had this character from the beginning.
Even more interest attaches to the many readings
where the Sahidic supports K or B, or both, where these
great MSS stand almost alone.4 Here again, the
version must faithfully have preserved its original faxmi,
as these readings are usually found also in the fragments
of the Graeco-Sahidic bilinguals. W e learn, therefore;
from the evidence of the Sahidic version that a text
similar in essentials to that of K and B. though slightly
more 'Western' in character, was current in Egypt
about the beginning of the fourth century.
The full Greek canon is represented both in the
Sahidic and the Bohairic ; but the Apocalypse seems to
have been regarded as non-canonical, and is never
bound up in the MSS with the rest of the NT. Acts is
placed after the Catholic epistles. In the Pauline epistles,
Hebrews follows z Thess. in Bohairic MSS ; but in the
Sahidic and the Fayytimic it follows z Cor.
1 A curious point of contact between Fayyilmic and Bohairic
MSS is that the same contractions for ' Lord' and ' God ' are
found in both, whilst in Sahidic the words are always written out
in full.
2 Prominent among them is the interpolation about the great
stone in Lk. 23 53, with which is connected the longer form of
Lk. 24 I 2. The only non-Egyptian evidence for this reading is
u c.
3 E g . , 'Nineue' for the name of the rich man in Lk. 16 19;
comp. ' ille Fineus diues ' in de P a c k . Corn$. 265, and ' Finees
inmisericordis diuitis ' in Pn>ci/liun,91.
*5 E.s., Mt. 3 14 (om. 'Ioa'vvqc); Mt. 6 8 (add. 6 04s).
See, e.g., Lk. 1024 23 34a 36 Jn. 8 5 7 , in t h e fragments pub-
lished by Amelineau (N. et Eztr. 34). It should be noticed t h a t
Graxo-Sahidicbilinguals are generally written with two columns
m a page, the Greek occupying the whole of the oerso and the
jahidic the recto, so that of the four columns visible at the open
>age,the two on the left are Greek, and the two on the right are
Egyptian. The Greek and the Sahidic agree column for
:olumn, but not line for line, and the two sides of the codex now
Ind then support different readincs-e.g., in Jn. 633, the Sahidic
side of T reads 6 io; Bsoii with ND against its own Greek.
5010
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
In an article of this kind it is almost impossible to indicate
the printed texts of the N T in the various Egyptian dialects,
which (apart from early editions, now antiquated) lie scattered
in Deriodlcals such as the ZeifscLrift fiir Aervdiisclre Shache-.
Cdmplete lists of editions and MSS \;ill be f&d in Scrivener
(4th ed. [by A. C. Headlam]), 2 106-123: ~27'36, 140-144. For
the official Bohairic by far the best edition is the Oxford text
edited with translation and critical apparatus by G. H[orner],
vol. i.J Gospels, 1898 ; vol. iii. Acts and Epistles (shortly).
The first mention of an Armenian church dates from
I . \
TEXT AND VERSIONS
Abyssinians, is usually cited as the ' Althiopic.' Abys-
3,. Ethiopic sinian Christianity is said to go back into
the fourth century; but the existing
version. version is not older than the fifth or the
sixth century. T h e translation was from the Greek;
but it has been proved by Guidi ( L e Traduzioni de&
EvangeZii in Arado e in Etiopico, Rome, 1888) that
many of the existing MSS, which are all very late,
represent later revisions made from the mediEva1 Arabic

36, Armenian concerning whom Eusebius relates that

.
the eDiscoDate of Dionvsius of Alexandria j 2 4 8 - 2 6 ~ ) .
./I
he wrote a letter to the Armenians,
version* and that their hishoD was named
Meruzanes. Gelzer (Die Anfunge dir armenischen
Kivche) believes that this community lived in Azerbaijan ;
but in any case there can be little doubt that it was
evangelised by Syriac-speaking missionaries, and that
its ecclesiastical language was Syriac. An Armenian
version does not appear till much later. Tradition
ascribes the work to Isaac and Mesrob (fl.400); but, as
Armitage Robinson remarks, the accounts ' combine a
certain conflict of assertion with a suspicious family
likeness ' (EuthaZianu 72). He adds : ' One fact which
seems to stand out distinctly after the perusal of these
puzzling statements is that the earliest attempts a t trans-
lating the Scriptures into Armenian were based on Syriac
codices,' and goes on to show (pp. 76-91) that there
are still unmistakable traces of the primitive renderings
from the Syriac in the existing Armenian Vulgate. T h e
Syriac text which was employed was not the Peshitta
but the Old Syriac, both in the Gospels and in the
Epistles. About the middle of the fifth century this
primitive version was thoroughly revised from the Greek,
so that it is only here and there that we can recognise
the original groundwork. The Greek text by which the
revision was made was apparently not the Antiochian,
but one akin to BK ; the readings of the Armenian which
are attested neither by Syr.vt nor by BK are very few
and may have come from chance corruption in later
times.'
The only critical edition of the Armenian version is
that of Zohrab (NT, Venice, 1789). A useful abstract
of the native traditions about the Armenian version, with
lists of some ancient MSS, is to be found in F. C. Cony-
beare's article in Scrivener (4th ed. 2 148-154).
Old Armenian MSS of the Gospels usually omit [Mk.] 169.20
a!together ; those which retain the verses make a break at z1. 8,
ving the colophon GospEI of Mark both after 168 and after 16M.
F. C. Conybeare (Exjositor, 1893, pp. 242 3).however dis-
covered at Etchmiadzin a codex of the Armenian Gospels, w h e n
in 989 A . D which contains the disputed verses with the rubric
Arision &iim ('Of the Presbyter Aristion'). A photograph
of the page containing Mk. 1 6 8 8 is given in Swete's Si.Mark
p. CIV. The inference is that the scribe of the MS, or of it;
archetype, had access to a tradition that Aristion, the friend of
Papias mentioned in Euseb. HE 339, was the man who added
the verses at the end of the second Gospel. This would seem
to be some fifty years too early, if other indications are to be
trusted. In any case the readings of the codex should be pub-
lished in full asaloneHmong Old Armenian MSS it contains the
story of the'woman taken in Adultery, but in a form quite
different from any other authority (Conybeare in Expositor,
Dec. 1895).
T h e version in Ge'ez, the classical language of the
text current in Alexandria.'
A few traces survive of a yet older Ethiopic version
of the Gospels, made from the Syriac, as in the case of
the Armenian version. T h e Aramaic colouring of the
vocabulary of the Ethiopic N T has been pointed out by
Gildemeister (Tischendorf s N T 3895 note), and the
text now and again agrees with Syr.vt against almost
all other authorities, though it usually follows the Greek
or the Arabic. Thus in Mk.lO5o it reads dar@hcb
for d a o ~ u X r 5 v ,supported only by cod. 565 and by Ss.
(not by the Diatessaron).
T h e Ethiopic N T was printed at Rome in 1548-9 ;
this edition was repeated in Walton's Polyglott, and
has been carefully rendered into Latin (C. A. Bode,
Brunswick, 1753). Another edition was prepared by
T. Pel1 Platt for the British and Foreign Bible Society
in 1830.
The remaining versions of the N T are of much less
importance for the text. T h e Gothic version dates from
38. Gothic the middle of the fourth century. It is the
version. work of Ulphilas ( Wu@/a, ' Little Wolf '),
the apostle of the Goths, and so is the
earliest surviving literature in any Teutonic language.
Ulphilas worked among the Goths of the Danubian
Provinces ; but the surviving documents all appear to
belong to N. Italy and the age of the Ostrogoths or
even of the Lombard conquest. Of the N T we have
the Gospels and Pauline epistles (except Hebrews), hut
with many gaps, well edited from MSS of about the
sixth century.
The Gothic, unlike the Armenian and the Ethiopic, has hardly
any link of connection with the great ante-Nicene versions and
so for critical purposes is of less salue. For the influence of the
Gothic on some late Old Latin texts see above, 8 16. The MS of
Romans cited as sue (or p e @ L ) is a Latino-Gothic bilingual .
the Latin appears to be entirely dependent on the Gothic text:
Here and there the Gothic MSS seem to haire taken over 0.
Latin readings (e.g., Lk. 13), in the same way that the Latin
cod. f has been influenced by the Gothic.
The Georgian (or Iderian) version shows signs of having been
originally made from the Old Syriac, like its sister the Armenian
(F. C. Conybeare in Anzer. Jaunt. of TAeoZogy
39. Other lss3 8). The Slavonic version, of the ninth
versions. century, is made from the Greek and is too late to
represent any ancient type of text not otherwise
preserved. Aradic versions from the Syriac and the Greek can
be traced back to the eighth and the ninth century ; hut the
current Arabic is essentially a translation of the Bohairic Coptic,
interpolated from the Greek and Syriac Vulgates. Its sole
claim to our attention here is that Guidi has recognised it as the
source from which the far earlier Ethiopic has been corrupted.
Jrst as in the East late versions were made from the Greek and
Syriac Vulgates, so in the West there are various translations into
Anglo-Saxon, Frankish, etc., from the Latin Vulgate. 411 these
secondary translations contributenothing for the criticism of the
original text of the N T because the Greek, Latin, and Syriac
Vulgates can be accurately constructed from earlier authorities.

11. OLD T E S T A M E N T
A. THE M ASSORETIC TEXT
All MSS of the Hebrew OT are copies, more or less
full and accurate, of a single critical edition commonly
40. lYIassoreticcalled ' &e Massoretic Text.' This
edition, like other critical works, con-
text. tains a Text. a Puncfuation, and Nofes.
'Massora' means tradition, and the unknown editors only
profess to give the traditional text, as it was traditionally
recited in the synagogue. T h e date of the Massoretic
edition must be placed somewhere between the fifth and
1 23.~. in Mt. 17.8 the Armenian has &&$ with BX against
the AntiAchian Greek text on the one hand, and all forks of the Mohammedan conquest and the consequent spread of the Arabic
Syriac on the other.
501 I
the eighth century of our era. Jerome knew nothing of
any system of vocalisation in Hebrew MSS ; the present
system must have been introduced later than the be-
ginning of the fifth century ; an inferior limit is set by
the existence of Massoretic codices as old as the ninth
century.* (On the Samaritan text of the Pentateuch
see § 45.)
1 Possibly 3 reminiscence of this revision has been preserved
in the Enconrizm of Abha Salama published by Ludolf in 1691
Commentanus, p. 225.
2 Systems of vocalisation similar in principle are now used for
Syriac and classical Arabic. All three systems must have a
common origin, and may have been indirectly a result of the
language in a vulgarised form. Before the seventh century
5012
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
I . The Text of the Massoretic edition consists of the
consonants of the Hebrew (cp W RITING, § 7), which
are, however, divided into words.
According to the Jewish view this alone is ‘Scripture,’and in
theory it is complete by itself withont further punctuation or
vocalisation. The extant MSS, none of which are older than
the ninth century, give the consonantal text adopted by the
Massoretes with great fidelity ; throughout the forty-eight
chapters of Ezekiel only sixteen real variations occur between a
modern edition based ultimately on Western MSS and the
‘Codex Bahylonicus Petropolitanus’ (916 A.D.), a newly dis-
covered MS of wholly Eastern ancestry. Yet, as will be shown
later this consonantal text is frequently corrupt, so that the
ngreiment of our MSS only enables us to reconstruct their
common exemplar and affords no proof whatever that this
exemplar faithfully represented the lost original as iF left the
author’s hands.
The leather rolls used in the synagogue contain no vocalisa-
tion ; but their full agreement with the pointed codices proves
that they also are only transcripts of the official Massoretic text.
2. The Massoretic Punctuation serves what we are
accustomed to consider the double purpose of vocalisa-
41. tion and accentuation. Each word is
provided with ‘ points ’ and one or more
‘ accents, the points indicating the vowels that are to be
supplied to each letter, whilst the accents indicate the
inflections of the voice, telling the reader what pause, if
any, is to be made on the word, and thus forming a
complete system of punctuation in the English sense of
the term. These additional signs also are given with
considerable accuracy in the MSS, though there is a
certain amount of variation in the case of the subordinate
accents.
The value of the whole system as a kind of gram-
matical commentary on the Hebrew Scriptures can hardly
be over-estimated. So well is the vocalisation ‘carried
out, that there are very few places where the text can be
emended by altering the points and leaving the con-
sonants as they stand. In fact, the Massoretic pointing
may even be used as a means of discovering errors in
the text. The Massoretes did not make a critical
revision; they only supplied traditional vowels to the
traditional consonantal text ; where the consonantal
text was corrupt, really suitable vowels could not be
placed. As a general rule, therefore, anomalous point-
ing in our Hebrew text is a sign that the consonants are
wrong.’ The chief exceptions are to be found in places
where theological or national prejuduce appears to have
influenced the Punctuation. Even there, however, the
false readings are hardly ever novelties; they are the
perpetuation of old and popular errors.
3. I n addition to text and punctuation the Mas-
soretic edition includes critical Nofes, which occupy
42. Notes. the margins of our copies. Some of these
notes draw attention to anomalies of vocali-
sation, or what might seem to be such, thereby fulfilling
the same purpose that we express by putting sic after a
word ; others form part of a vast system of ‘ marginal
references ’ and computations intended to preserve the
absolute integrity of the Massoretic standard.3 For
textual criticism, however, the most interesting of these
notes deal with passages where the Masoretes against
their usual custom have deserted the reading of the text.
Not that even in such cases they have dared to change
the written Word (KZthibh); the consonantal text re-
other systems of partial vocalisation such as the introduction of
the ‘matres lectionis’ and in Syria; the diacritical point had
been employed in Semitic writing where a purely conso&tal
e
al habet had been found too ambiguous.
Illustrations of this statement will be found, e.g., in Dt. 33 21
I S . 1 6 g I s . 9 6 ( 7 ) , Ezek.28xz Mi.28.
2 Thus the Hebrew oath was hy the life of the person sworn
by (e.g., Gen. 42 15 f: Amos 8 14); but in swearing by the true
God this is altered into a predication of His Being. Hence the
impossible mixed formula ‘ As the Lord liveth, and by the life of
thy soul’ ( I Sam. 20 3, etc.). But this mixed form is as old as
the Targum. For other instances, see col. 5029.
3 Some of these lists and calculations form separate works
such as the tract Ochln, and are no doubt in part older than th;
written vowd-points and the Massoretic edition. For a full
description of the methods used in the Massoretic Notes see
Wellhausen-Bleek, E i d e i t u q , S 277.
160 50’3
TEXT AND VERSIONS
mains unaltered, but the vowels supplied to it are
those of the emended consonantal text, which appears
only on the margin, followed by the word KZ(Z ( Ito be
read I).
A certain number of these alterations refer to the
spelling or pronunciation of grammatical forms, of which
the KZthibh has often preserved the older type, especially
in the Aramaic portions of Daniel and Ezra. But
where it is a question of real variation of reading there
can be no doubt that the KZthibh was simply supposed
to be corrupt, and the Klri was a more or less successful
conjrcfural emendation. Thus we come to the very
important conclusion that the Massoretic text itself is,
in parts at least, ultimately based on a single faulty XIS ;
when we find in Ezek. 48 16 ‘ five five hundred ’ in the
text, not corrected, but with a marginal note to read
‘ five’ only once, we cannot but conclude that here at
any rate the editors had been reduced to following a
single MS in which ’five ’ had been written twice over
by mistake.’
Few scholars will suppose that the &?re? readings
cover all the corrupt passages in the Hebrew text.
They are simply the passages where the mistake was
most patent and the remedy nearest a t hand. It is
only likely that we should find corruptions in the ancient
literature of the Jews, literature written in a dead
language and relating to vanished national and social
conditions, circulating among a people whose seats of
learning were again and again broken up by political
misfortunes (see further, 66).
But in whatever condition the text underlying the Mas-
soretic edition may be, criticism has to start from it.
The direct evidence takes us no farther, a n d the only
quarter from which we can hope for a n improvement
of the Hebrew text (apart from conjectural emendation)
is the study of the ancient versions. From these we
may at least learn something of the history of the text
back to the second or the third century B . C .
Since the above was written some fragments of
papyrus, containing the ten commandments, followed
by the ShZmu’ (Dt. 6 4 J ) in Hebrew, have been edited
by S. A. Cook in PSBA (Jan. 1903). T h e appear-
ance of the papyrus and the very remarkable hand-
writing, which presents striking resemblances with the
Palmyrene character, point to a date not later than the
second century A. D . The text agrees in several instances
with the Septuagint against MT. It is possible, there-
fore, that further discoveries may one day enable us
directly to control the Massoretic tradition.
5
The three chief ointed editions of the Hebrew text are the
Bomberg Folio, pu lished
’ ’, Venice 1525-6, the Mantua Quarto
,in
with Norzi s commentary 7742.4 and the octavo
43. Editions. edition of Van der Hooght, 17:s. The last is
the parent of the ordinary re rints. The Bom-
berg edition is the work of Rabbi Jacob fen Hayyim, and
contains, besides Rabbinical commentaries and the Targums, a
vast collection of Massoretic material there brought together for
the first time. Of modern editions that of Baer-Delitzsch is to
he noticed for its correctness and the fulness of its Massoretic
notes. C. D. Ginshurg also may he mentioned; his Massora
(now nearly completed) will contain the entire apparatus, with
indices.
In addition to canonical Scripture there was a con-
siderable body of pre-Christian Hebrew literature ; but
this has altogether perished, or is only known by trans-
lations into Greek, etc. Such for instance is the First
Book of the Maccabees, the Book of Enoch, and
others (see APOCRYPHA, APOCALYPTIC).
A fragment of this literature in the original Hebrew was
brought to light in 1896 by the discovery of part of a MS of the
Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach ( ~ 3 i3l),~ commonly called
Eccksiasticus.2 Fragments of other MSS have been discovered
in the following years. It is still disputed to what extent these
MSS preserve the original text, as they seem to have been
corrected in places to agree with the Syriac and with the Greek,
1 In anv given variation it is of course quite likely that the
copies used by the Masoretes had not fallen into the error for
the first time, but were slavishly repeating the originally
accidental error of a single MS.
2 See ECCI.ESIASTICUS, $ 4 ; SIRACH.
50’4
 TEXT A N D VERSIONS
whilst in other places the newly-recovered Hebrew differswidely
from both versions. See ECCLESIASTICUS, 5 4 3 , and especial1
SIRACH. The extensive variations between the Hebrew MS8
and the ancient Greek and Syriac versions show the dangers to
which Hebrew works were exposed in transmission unless a r t r
ficially preserved by rules such as those observed by the Mas-
soretes ; they also illustrate the freedom used by the ancients
when translating profane literature.
B. V ERSIONS
T h e age and character of the versions of the O T are
so different that it niav be well to Drefix a list of them.
arranged roughly in chronological order,
44 OT
to the more detailed examination which
follows :-
I. T h e Samaritan (Heb. ) Pentateuch (§ 45) and the
Samaritan (Aram. ) Targum (S AMARITANS, 5 a ) , the
origin of which goes back to 400 B.C.
2. T h e ancient Greek version, commonly called the
Septuagint ($546f: 51-55). Parts of it date from the third
century B.C. : but other portions are not so ancient, and
the whole has been much revised and altered in later
times. This is the O T of the Greek church. There
are valuable subsidiary translations of the Septuagint
into Latin (IS 56-58), Coptic (§ 6 3 ) , Ethiopic ( 5 64), and
Armenian (§ 64), from the second to the seventh century
A. D .), and a t a later period into S y r i a (S GI$ ), .-frubic.
Gothic, etc. (§ 64).
3. The Taupmzs, paraphrases of the Hebrew O T
in t h e various -dialects of- Jewish Aramaic for, use in
the synagogue. Their origin goes back to before the
Christian Era ; but their extant form was fixed at a much
later period (§ 65).
4. Later Greek translations of the Hebrew Scriptures,
made during the second century A. D. by Jews or Jewish-
Christians named Aguila (§ 46), Symmachus (§ 47),and
Theodotion (8 48).
5. T h e Syriac version, commonly called the Peshi?ti,
a translation from the Hebrew, of unknown age but
certainly earlier than the foiirth century A.D. (I 6 0 ) ,
6. The new Latin version made by Jerome a t the
beginning of the fifth century A . D . , now known as the
J’Ukatf ( § 54).
I t will be practically convenient to describe these
versions of the O T under the languages in which they
are found, irrespective of the character of the text.
The ‘Samaritan Pentateuch ’ is not a version ; it is
the Hebrew text of the ‘five books of Moses’ as pre-
served by the Saniaritan community.
The Samaritans were a mixed race settled in the country
round Samaria. They had been willing to join the Jews in
rebuilding the temple after the return ; but
46. SalllZLTitaIl when the Jews refused their help they became
Pentateuch. bitterly hostile and Samaria formed a perma-
Dent asylum for those who left or were driven
out by their co-religionists in Jerusalem. About 333 B.C. one of
these refugees, a certain Manasseh randson of the high priest
Eliashib (Neh. 13 23-31 ; Jos. A&.’Z. ?a), obtained leave from
Darius Codomannus to set up a temple on Mt. Gerizim, and it
is highly probable that along with the temple ritual he brought
with him the then canonical Jewish Scripture-i.e., the Book
of the Law in Hebrew.1 This alone forms the Scriptures of thq
Samaritans. It is written like all their books, in the ‘Samaritan
character, which is the )direct descendant of the old Hebrew
writing. The dialect spoken by the Samaritans was a variety
of western Aramaic (see ARAMAIC, Q 8 : SAMARITANS, 6 5 4,
into which at some period was made a translation of the Penta-
teuch known as the Samaritan Targum (SAMARITANS, 8 5 a);
there is also found in Samaritan MSS an Arabic translation
made about the eleventh century A.D., at a time when the
Samaritans, like the rest of the peoples of Syria, had adopted
the Arabic language. See SAMARITANS.
The Samaritan Pentateuch had from the beginning
certain intentional adaptations to fit it to the new wor-
1 It is not unlikely that the schism of Manasseh is the cause
of the well-known various reading in Judg. 1830, where the
name Moses (2m)has been changed into Manasseh net'^) by
the insertion of a letter above the line. By this thoroughly
rabhinic device a parallel between the earlier and the later
northern schism was indicated yet without entirely falsifying
the text. ‘ Manasseh * is in thiKErE, the Targum, the Peshitta,
and the later texts of Q ; hut the earlier text of Q had ‘Moses,’
which is still read by the Lyons Octateuch and some Greek MSS.
5015
TEXT AND VERSIONS
ship, as the cnnimand to build an altar on Mt. Gerizim
inserted after Ex. 20 1 7 , and the interchange of F:bal and
Gerizim in Dt. 274. Characteristic also of the Samaritan
Pentateuch are certain long interpolations from parallel
or semi-parallel passages (e.g., a t Ex. 2019 8 from
Deut. 18, and in Nu. 2Of: from Deut. 1-3),and in some
places anthropomorphic expressions are paraphrased,
much as in the Targums.’ On the other hand it has,
presumably, escaped the corruptions which have befallen
the purely Jewish line of transmission since the fourth
century B .c., whence now and then it agrees with the
Septuagint in preserving words and letters which have
dropped out of the Massoretic texta There is nothing,
however, to show that the roll or rolls carried o f f by
Manasseh contained a recension in any way superior lo
those then current in Jerusalem ; in fact, the Samaritan
shares with all other extant forms of the Pentateuch
some clear palaeographical corruptions, such as T W .
Nu. 243, h a , Dent. 3313, Nn’? p, Dent. 3321 (sees66).
The main thing, therefore, to be learnt from the
Samaritan recension is that about the year 333 R.c.,
less than a century after Ezra, less than a century after
the Torah in its present form had become once for all
the Law-book of the Jewish church, the text of tne
Pentateuch was read substantiallv as we read it now.
The Samaritan Pentateuch and TaGgum were first printed by
J. Morinus in the Paris Pol glott (1632) from a MS brought to
Europe by Pietro de la Va%. This was repeated in Walton’s
Polyglott(r657),and the Hebrew text separately printed in 1750.
Bagster’s Polyglott contains a collation of this edition with the
ordinary printed Hebrew. Cp SAMARITANS, $ 5a.
I. G REEK
Earliest among the versions properly so-called, per-
haps the earliest translation of any considerable body of
46: septuagint : literature into a totally different lan-
guage, is the ancient Greek version
Origin‘ commonly known as the Septuagint.
According to the constant iradition of the Alexandrian
Jews the Law was translated into Greek in the reign of
Ptolemy Philadelphus (284-247 B.C. ) a t the instigation
and under the patronage of Demetrius Phalareus the
librarian of the Alexandrian Library. One of the two
authors from whom we gather this is Aristobulus of
Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher of the second century
B.C. ; the other is a Jewish writer of the Ptolemaic period
who composed under the name of Aristeas, a courtier of
Philadelphus, a fictitious account of the origin of t h e
version. Aristobulus (up. Clem. Alex. Strom. 1342 and
Ens. Praep. En.96 1312) maintained that Pythagoras
and Plato derived their philosophy from Moses, whilst
the object of the pseudo-Aristeas (H ISTORICAL LITERA-
TURE, § 19,vi.) appears to have been to represent the
Greek version of the Law as having been undertaken
with the express approval of the high-priestly circles in
Jerusalem. These authors had no object in asserting
that the version had been made about 280 B.C. under
distinguished heathen patronage-such a representation
must have stood in their way : we may therefore assume
that it was a historical fact of which they were obliged
to take a c c o ~ n t . ~T h e name Septuagint comes from
-
the story given by pseudo Aristeas, and variously
embellished by later writers, that the translation was
made by seventy men (or seventy-two, six from each
tribe), who all agreed in their renderings.
It will he noticed that these stories refer excliisively to t h e
Pentateuch to which alone the name Septuagint (LXX) properly
belongs. $,it the whole Greek OT i? now comprehended under
this term, by a convenient if unhistorcal usage, which goes back
to the time of Origen.
T h e other books of the OT had an even less official
origin than the translation of the Law. They seem to
have been turned into Greek by different hands at
various times from the middle of the third century B.C.
1 Eg., Nu.234.
2 Eg.,Gen. 4 8 Deut. 32 35.
3 Demetrius Phalereus was exiled by Philadelphus earl in
his reign : hence we cannot place the translation of the l a w
much later than 280.
5016
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
down to the Christian Era, or even later. There is
evidence for believing that Philo the Jew (about 30 B. c. - Jews in the days of Justinian (Nod 146) ; but no M S
47. Citations. 50 A.D.) was acquainted with all the
Or except Esther, Ecclesiastes, Song
of Solomon, and Daniel (cp C ANON , 50). At a still
earlier date (132 B .c.) the translator of Ecclesiasticus
speaks of ‘ the Law and the Prophets and the rest of the
Books ’ as existing in Greek (cp C A NON , 5 39), whilst the
Book of Wisd. 2 I Z (? 50 B. c.) contains a clear adaptation
of the very peculiar rendering of Is. 3 IO in the LXX.
T h e use of the O T by the writers of the various books
of the N T suggests many difficult problems, the solutions
of which have by no means all been reached. Some
writers, notably Lk., clearly use LXX. Others, such as
the writer of the first Gospel, often agree with the Hebrew
in places where it differs from LXX. But it by no means
follows that this latter class are using an independent
Greek version. In the opinion of the present writer
it is far more likely that the quotations in the N T
that do not follow LXX are derived either directly
from the Hebrew or mediately through the more or less
fixed Aramaic renderings then current in the synagogue.
In the case of the Apocalypse we must remember that
it is in language an adaptation of a previously existing
Jewish Apocalypse in Hebrew or Aramaic (APOCALYPSE,
9 2 4 8 ) . an adaptation so close as to be in parts, at least,
a translation. Such a work natnrally shows in its Greek
dress many coincidences with the O T which are quite
independent of LXX ; but these coincidences can
scarcely be used with any confidence to postulate in-
dependent Greek versions. After the catastrophe
of the Jewish W a r in 70 A.D. the Semitic-speaking
Christianity of Palestine disappeared, and by the next
generation the church became entirely dependent on the
Greek version of the OT.
In the middle of the second century A. D. we find the
Christian Justin and the Jew Trypho equally using the
LXX and founding theirargumentsonitswording, though
here and there (as in Is. 312714) the Jew is no longer
satisfied with the traditional rendering. But after the
Hebrew canon became definitely closed under ‘Akiha and
his school, and a stricter exegesis began to come into
fashion, the LXX failed to satisfy the synagogue, and
three separate attempts were made to supersede it.
These are the new translations of Aquila and of Sym-
niachus, and the elaborate revision of the LXX by Theo-
dation. As these woi-ks are of importance mainly for
their influence upon the text of the LXX, which continued
to be the translation used by the church, it will be con-
venient to describe them here.
Aquila, a native of Pontus, is said to’have been a
proselyte to Judaism and a disciple of the celebrated
Qs. version of Kabbi ‘Akiha (d. 135 A.D.). His ver-
sion, therefore, may be dated about
Bquila. the second quarter of the second
century. I t is marked by the greatest literalness, a n
attempt being made to express every word of the
original, and even to render the derivatives of a Hebrew
root by derivatives frc.m the corresponding Greek root
(Fz’eZcf, 22). This method of translation was not the
result of ignorance, bnt of a system of exegesis which
RRS willing to deduce important theological conclusions
from the presence or absence of the smallest particles.2
For the textual critic Aquila’s method is extremely con-
venient. It is always easy to retranslate his renderings
into their Hebrew original, and (what is practically
more important) his style is so pronounced that frag-
ments of his work which have been incorporated with
other documents can be easily recognised and eliminated.
1 Ryle, PkiZo and Ho& ScnjWye, 82.
a “ The Hebrew prefix cU, which marks the definiteaccusa-
tive, agrees in form with the preposition ‘ with.’ Hence, when
Deut. 1020 says, ‘Thou shalt fear ebbJehovah thy God,’ Akiba
interprets, ‘Thou shalt fear f kdoctors of the Znw along with
Jehovah.’ So Aquila, the disciple of Akiba, translates the mark
of the accusative by &v”(WRS, UTJC,1881,39). In such
cases OJVdoes not govern a case.
5017
TEXT AND VERSIONS
T h e version of Aquila was used by Greek-speaking
was known to survive until some fragments of tWo very
handsome codices were found among the debris from
the Geniza of the Cairo synagogue, which were trans-
ferred in 1897 to the Cambridge University Library.
The fragments of the books of Kings ( I K. 207-17 2 K.
2312-27)were edited in 1897 by F. C. Burkitt, those of
Psalms (parts of Pss. 90-103) in 1899 by C. Taylor.‘
Small as is the extent covered by these fragments, they
are of great importance for the criticism of Origen’s
Hexapla and the Hexaplar readings in our Greek MSS
of the LXX.
A peculiarity of Aquila’s version, as revealed by these frag-
ments, is the use of the Old-Hebrew character for t h e Tetra-
grammaton (Yahwk: see NAMES, $ xcg&)A3 33, which is
left thusuntranslated. In Ps.10217 we find T B I W N for ]),s, a
notable transliteration, to be paralleled only by TIAAH in E’s
text of Lam. 118 2 18 352-54 4 18, itself probably adapted from
Aquila
Symmachus is said to have been a Samaritan by race
and an Ebionite Christian by religion. His version
Q9. Of 8ym- seems to have been published between
machus. the times of Irenaeus and of Origen,
about 200 A.D. His method was
utterly different from Aquila’s, as he aimed at giving a
rendering of the O T in Greek sufficiently idiomatic not
to offend a reader ignorant of Semitic constructions.
T h e Hebrew text which underlies the translation of
Symmachus is equally with that of Aquila alniost
identical with the Masoretic. Both Symmachus and
Aquila appear to have published second editions of
their translations, differing slightly from the first.
Theodotion is mentioned along with Aquila by
Irenaeus (Her.323) as a modern translator in contra-
~~. Of Thee- distinction to the ancient Seventy.
H e is said to have been an Ephesian
dotion. and a proselyte to Judaism; other
accounts make him, like Symmachus, an eEbionite.
The date of his work is uncertain; but, according to
Epiphanius, it falls within the reign of Commodus (180-
192 A . D . ) . The only reason for doubting this and
assigning Theodotion to a considerably earlier date is
that coincidences with the version of Daniel, which goes
by his name, have been detected in various early
Christian writings. including some books of the NT.
But these coincidences admit of another explanation
(st- above, 47)which has strong claims on our accept-
ance; it would, moreover, be against all analogy that
Christian literary tradition should put a work of this
kind a century too Zufe.
Theodotion’s edition differs essentially from those of
Aquila and Symmachus. I t was nat, like theirs, an
independent translation, but a revision of the LXX by
the existing Hebrew. H e supplied translations of
words and passages of the Hebrew for which there was
no equivalent in the LXX, but retained the additions of
the Greek which are unrepresented in the Massoretic
text. T h e renderings of the LXX were largely retained
by him, and the construction of the sentences hut little
changed. His own renderings followed the general
style of the LXX, his chief peculiarity being a fondness
€or transliterating Hebrew words instead of translating.
Theodotion seems to have based his work on a good
text of the LXX, which is often unrepresented in o u r
existing MSS, and this constitutes for us his chief value.
The revision of the LXX thus made by Theodotion
appears very soon to have influenced the text used by
Christian scholars. Clear traces of Theodotion’s render-
ings are found in some of the quotations of Clement of
Alexandria (c.g., Ped.1I O = Is. 48 22 ; Strom. 2 z z =
Ezek. 1 8 4 - ~ ) . ~A little later the same remarkable
1 The numeration in each case is that of the Hebrew text.
2 See ‘Clemens Alexandrinus und die LXX ’ by Dr. Otto
Stahlin (Beif. z. /akres&. d. K. newn Gymwz!ums in Niirn-
6eYg,1901).
5018
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
phenomenon meets us in Tertullian's quotations from
Ezekiel (Tertullian, De Res. Carnis, z9=Ezek. 371-14;
Adv. Zzrdeos. I I =Ezek. 812-96). But the quotations
of Cyprian and other Latin writers from Ezekiel are free
from admixture with Theodotion. On the other hand,
the Church definitely adopted Theodotion's revision of
Daniel in the place of the older and more paraphrastical
translation of the LXX. T h e history of this important
change is extremely obscure. I t may have been helped
on by the popularity of the commentary on Daniel
issued by Hippolytus (about 220 A . D . ) , and, in any
case, it was accepted even in the Latin-speaking church
at Carthage during the lifetime of Cyprian (250 A. D. ).
One consequence of this change is that all copies of the
genuine LXX text of Daniel have disappeared except
two, and these give the text only as revised by Origen
(I 49). W e have, therefore, a very imperfect idea 01
the range of variation in the ecclesiastical texts OI
Daniel current in early times, and it is probable that
the coincidences of language with Theodotion's Daniel
which have been observed in early writers are due to
the use, not of Theodotion's text itself, but of a text of
the LXX, akin to that which Theodotion took as the
basis of his revision.
It has been maintained by Sir H. H. Howorth (PSBA
23147-159 [ I ~ o I ] ) ,and the theory has great probability,
that the book called Eara B in our Greek MSS of the
Septuagint, which is practically a literal translation of
the Massoretic text of Ezra-Nehemiah, is a part of the
work of Theodotion, the original Greek rendering of
the book being that called Ezra A-Le., ' I Esdrzs' in the
English Apocrypha (see E ZR A , THE G REEK , col. 1490).
About the year 240 the celebrated Origen, then living
as an exile from Alexandria at Czsarea in Palestine,
6~. ,,rigen's prepared an edition of all these versions
arranged in parallel columns, which
work. is known as the H e m p h . The six
columns contained ( I ) the Hebrew, (2) a transliteration
of the Hebrew into Greek letters, ( 3 ) Aqnila, ( 4 ) Syni-
machus, (5) the LXX, ( 6 ) Theodotion. In the poetical
and prophetical books there were also extracts from a
fifth aud a sixth Greek version, both of unknown age and
authorship. The columns were arranged in very short
COZU, the extant fragments rarely containing more than
the equivalent of one or two Hebrew words. A smaller
edition, called the Tetrapla, was afterwards prepared by
Origen himself, consisting of the four Greek versions
alone, without the Hebrewcolunins. The Hexapla, how-
ever, was not merely a synoptical table ; it was rather an
attempt to emend the LXX by the Hebrew, like the
edition of Theodotion. In the words of Jerome (PreJ
in PuraZzjjomenon), Origen not only brought together
the four translations-writing down their renderings one
against the other, so that the eccentricities of any one of
them can be convicted bytheagreement of the threeothers
between themselves ; but, what was more audacious, he
interpolated the LXX from Theodotion's translation,
marking the fresh additions with asterisks, and at the
same time obelising those parts [of the genuine LXX]
which seemed to be superfluous '-Le., as having no equi-
valent in the Hebrew.l I t should be remarked that
though the additions are usually taken from Theodotion
there are many placeswhere the missingwordsare adapted
from Aquila or Synmachus. In principle the Hexaplar
text of the LXX differs from Theodotion's edition only
in two particulars :-(I) the process of revision was
chiefly confined to supplying what was missing, not to
altering the Greek renderings : ( 2 ) all additions to the
text, of whatever kind, were indicated by critical marks.
But there was no clear indication of actual changes in
the text itself, as distinct from additions or suggested
subtractions.
1 See also Origen in Maft. 15 74 (3p71).
2 There probahly were a few various readings set in the
margin, some of which are preserved in the Syro-Hexaplar text
of 4 Kings under the sign cr)(i.e ., fifth column). Some ofthese cr)
5019
TEXT AND VERSIONS
The last quarter of the third century and the beginning
of the fourth are marked by the appearance of three
sa. Three ~- editions of the LXX, tram one or other
of which practically all our Greek MSS
tensions. are descended. 'Alexandria with Egypt
uses as its Septuagint the work of Hesychius: cbn-
stantinople, as far as Antioch, uses the copies of Lucian
the martyr : the provinces lying betwreen these extremes
use the MSS of Origen's work issued by Eusebius and
Pamphilus' (Jerome, Pmf: in Paralip. : ' Alexandria et
Egyptus in Septuaginta suis Hesychium landat auc-
torem. Constantinopolis usque Antiochiam Luciani
martyris exemplaria probat ; mediz inter has prouincire
Palestinos codices .legunt. quos a b Origene elaboratos
Eusebius et Pamphilus uulgauerunt, totusque orbis hac
inter se trifaria uarietate compugnat '). Of these three
editions, the Eusebian is the Hexaplar text of the LXX
with its apparatus of asterisks (*) and obeli (?) ; the
Hesychian edition is that found in the quotations of
Cyril of Alexandria, and corresponds in character to
Hort's 'Alexandrian' text of the N T : the Lucianic
edition, like the 'Antiochian' text of the N T , is
characterised by attempts to smooth down grammatical
harshnesses and by conflate readings, where two pre-
viously existing and mutually exclusive renderings have
been fused into one.' It is this circumstance which
gives the Lucianic LXX considerable value for us, as
internal evidence conclusively shows that one a t least of
the elements out of which this composite text was con-
structed was not only ancient, but also quite indepen-
dent of the texts used for the Hexapla.
Such in brief is the history of the LXX : a few words
must now be said about the existing MSS, and the
63. Extant relation they bear towards the various
HBS. ancient texts. First of course come the
fonr great MSS of the fourth and fifth
centuries, viz. the Vaticanus (B), the Sinaiticus (K),the
Alexandrian (A), and the fragments of Cod. Ephraemi
(C). Besides these there are a multitude of copies from
the sixth century onwards ; but very few of these ever
contained the whole O T , which is usually divided up
into divisions such as the Octateuch, the Prophets, etc.
T h e Psalter is usually separate.
T h e original MS of Origen's Hexapla was doubtless
never copied again in full on account of its unwieldy
bulk ; but fragments of the Psalms in all five editions,
accompanied by a Catena Patrum, were discovered
in the Ambrosian Library at Milan in 1896 by G.
Mercati. The MS (0 39 sup.) is a palimpsest, the
original writing containing in tenth-century minuscules
all the columns of the Hexapla, except the Hebrew in
Hebrew letters. A fragment of Ps. 22, containing all
six columns, was found in 1898 among the Cairo Geniza
MSS at Cambridge, and has been published by C.
Taylor together with his fragments of Aquila (see
above, 48).
More important for practical purposes than these frag-
ments are the MSS connected with the Eusebian edition
of the LXX. These are of varied character. Some,
like the great codex K, give a text more or less corrected
to the Hexaplar standard, but without the diacritical
marks. Others, such as Codex Sarravianus ( G ) of the
Octateuch, have the critical signs, whilst others have the
readings are the last survival of a very pure LXX text ; see below,
0 66.
4 s to the amount of change admitted by Origen into the
Hexaplar text, it is probable that he emended the Hebrew
proper names (c Orig. inloann. 1159 in Brooke's edition with
the Hexapla to %x. 6 16); hut he seems often to hare hesitated
to introduce emendations which seriously affected the sense.
Thus in Jer. 15 io he retained o i h &+'Aqua, o6rs &46'A+u pe
o i 8 r k for 9 2 ~ 5 *n*vl
1 &, instead of substituting &+rLATua
and &#&A?& por from Theodotion although he believed the
1.XX to contain a scribal error (Or;; 3225). The scribal error,
however seems to occur in Philo (De Con&. Lint $5 12).
1 The'original copy of Lucian's recension, writteii'by his own
hand, is said by Theodoret to have been found in the time of
Constantine at Nicomedia walled up in the turret of a house
belonging to Jews.
5020
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
critical signs together with marginal notes containing
renderings from Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, etc.
Foremost among these fuller authorities is the Syro-
Herapiur version made by Paul of Tella in 616-617
A. D. (see $61). one of the most valuable extant works for
the text of the L
From some of thenotes in the Syro-Hexaphric version
and from reinarks of Theodoret it has been possible for
Field and 1,agarde independently to identify the MSS
which contain a Lucianic text. The Hesychian text is
best represented by the first hand of Codex Marchalianus
(Q), a sixth-century M S of the prophets. A second
hand has added to this MS a number of Hexaplnr
readings from the othw editions.
The chief printed editions of @ are :-(I) the Aldinr, Venice
1518 ; (2) the ComjLuteirsiarr Polyglott, Alcala, printed 15741
17, published 1522, representing a Lucianic
64. Printed text :(3) the Sixtine, Rome, 1587, based on Cod.
editions. B ; ( 4 ) the Alexandnurr, Oxford, 1707-20, Le.,
Grabe's ,adition, based on Cod. A ; (5) Ffolwzes
and Pars-, Oxford, 1798-1827,a reprint of the Sixtine text
(Cod. B.), hut with an apparatus containing the various readings
of many MSS and Fathers.1
Quite distinct from these, as aiming to reproduce not MSS
but particular recensionsof@ are :-Field's Hexapla, acollection
of the extant fragments, Oxford 1875 ; and Lagarde's restoration
of the Lucianic text [Gen.-EstLer only], Giittingen, 1883.
Lagarde in his Annzerkungen zur griechischen Uber-
setsung der Provedim, 3 (see Driver, TBS, p. xlvii)
~~.R e c o ~ ~ has
o f laid down the following rules for
original -. recovering the original text of the LXX
from our authorities :-
I. T h e MSS of the Greek translation of the O T are
all either immediately or mediately the result of an
eclectic process : it follows that he who aims at recover-
ing the original text must follow an eclectic method
likewise. His only standard will be his knowledge of
the style of the individual translators : his chief aid will
be the faculty possessed by him of referring the readings
which come before him to their Semitic original, or else
of recognising them a s corruptions originating in the
Greek.
2. If a verse or part of a verse appears in both a free
and a slavishly literal translation, the former is to be
counted the genuine rendering.
3. If two readings coexist, of which one expresses
the Massoretic text, while the other can only be ex-
plained from a text deviating from it, the latter is to be
regarded as the original.
These admirable rules, however, practically give up
the attempt to trace out the history of the text of the
LXX. It may therefore be worth while to indicate the
lines on which such an attempt may he undertaken.
In the first place it is necessary to get some criterion
for estimating the worth of the Hexaplar text with its
apparatus of asterisks, etc., as preserved in existing
MSS. For this we may use the fragments of the Old
Latin which are certainly derived from a Greek text
older than the Hexapla (see $ 56f.). Along with the
Old Latin we may take the quotations from the early
Greek fathers, so far as their text can be trusted.
When we compare our Hexaplar text with these
primary sources of information the general result
may be summarised thus :- ( I ) T h e critical signs
attached to the text, especially the all-important
asterisks (*) which mark interpolations introduced into
the LXX from Aquila, Symmachus, or Theodotion, are
fairly well preserved. Single authorities have dropped
or misplaced them here and there : but it is rarely the case
that the majority of our witnesses conspire in error.
( 2 ) The Hexaplar text itself, when purged of the inter-
polations under * is a good text of the LXX, on the whole
the best continuous text which survives. ( 3 ) It is very
far, however, from being really pure. The proper
1 The useful editions of Tischendorf (7th ed. 1C87) give the
Sixtine text with thevariants of BXAC. The Cambridge Edith
Mjnor 1887.1894, gives the text of B and the variants of NAC
with sbme other uncial MSS; a larger edition is in progress
which it is hoped will supersede Holmes and Parsons.
5021
TEXT AND VERSIONS
names have been largely corrected to the Massoretic
Hebrew, while in other matters inferior readings have
been either introduced or have been wrongly followed.
~
Having thus gained some idea of the worth of the
I Hexaplar text we may go on to apply these results to
the criticism of our chief surviving MSS. Their value
and independence will be found to differ greatly in the
various books. That they all contain ' Theodotion's '
Daniel, not the Daniel of the genuine LXX, is perhaps
not due to the Hexapla alone, as the change probably
occurred earlier. But it was Origen who introduced
nearly 400 lines ( i . e . , half-verses) into the LXX text of
Job from Theodotion, yet these interpolations are found
in all our MSS : so far therefore as Job is concerned it
is certain that none of our MSS go behind the Hexapla.
T h e fact that in various parts of the OT, notably the
four books of Kings (KINGS,$ 3 ; cp SAMUEL, 5 4) and
Ezekiel, 6"leaves out many passages known to be in-
terpola$ons, has given plausibility to the belief that it
presents 11s with a pre-Hexaplaric text; but other pheno-
mena of 6 s are inconsistent with this view, and it is better
to regard 6"as in the main a Hexaplar text without
the passages under asterisk (Lagarde, Proverbien, 3,
n. I ). In Judges, Isaiah, and Lamentations, the text
of b B is neither Hexaplaric nor that of the unrevised
LXX.' [On the text of Judges, cp JUDGES, 5 18.1
The text of 6*shows greater independence than that
of @B and though it is sprinkled more or less throughout
the O T with Hexaplaric additions it often retains the
reading of the LXX when most other MSS have gone
wrong.2
The Lucianic text contains a singular mixture of good
and bad readings ; but so far as can be judged from the
surviving evidence its good readings are also those of
the Old Latin. Its value to us therefore is to supply
evidence akin to the Old Latin, where that invaluable
witness fails us. The character of the Lucianic text is
indicated by Jerome (E$. ad Szrnnium et Fretelam, ap.
Field, p. lxxxvi) when he says: 'editionem, quam
Origenes. etc. KOLVI~V id est communem appellant atque
zru&utnm, et a plerisque nunc AouKiavbs dicitur.'
Lucian's revision, rather than the Hexaplar texts, is the
representative of the old KOLY+ ~ K ~ O Uthat ~ S survives
approximately pure in the better texts of the Old Latin.
The difference between the comparative value to us of
the 'Antiochian' texts of the OT and the N T simply
comes from the paucity of what we might call 'early
Western texts ' of the O T in Greek. If a M S analogous
to Codex Bezz survived, the value of the Lucianic text
would have been largely discounted.
11. L ATIN
T h e Old Latin is the only version of the O T made
from the Greek which is certainly older than the Hexapla.
66. The OId The Syriac version of the O T was
Latin version. translated direct from the Hebrew, not
from the Greek, and the other Oriental
versions belong to a later period. Hence the Old Latin
occupies a unique position, and must be regarded as
the chief authority for the restoration of the KOWSZ K ~ O U L S ,
or pre-Hexaplaric LXX. Unfortunately it survives only
in fragments, and some of the better-preserved forms
are the result of revision from Greek texts later than the
original translation.
As in the N T , the quotations of Cyprian (d. 2 5 8 ) form
the standard by which we may classify our texts.
Cyprian quotes from nearly all the books of O T and
N T and with almost unfailing accuracy, so that we may
gather from his works a fair idea of the characteristics
of the O T in Latin as it was read at Carthage about
the middle of the third century. Closely akin to the
1 Cp, for example, Is.4918 in @E and the Hexapla. In
Lamentations the names of the Hebrew letters of the alphabet
are transliterated in @B differentlv from other MSS. T L beine I
used for I and ,ycfor 0 (see above,.l48).
2 E.$., Judg. 58, end.
5022
 TEXT AND,VERSIONS
Cyprianic text is that used in De Pascha Computus,
except in Daniel. A slightly later type is presented by
the various Donatist texts, such as that found in the
extensive quotations of Tyconius, and in the Gesta of
the ' Collatio Carthaginiensis ' held in 411 A.D. ; among
these also must be reckoned the Lucca Genedug&
(Lagarde, Septunginta Studien, 25-28), a historical work
of purely Latin origin containing a very large number
of biblical proper names, all of which are given in pre-
Hexaplaric spelling.
Among 'European' texts special mention must be made of
Lucifer of Cagliari (d. 371) whose quotations, especially from
the historical books are veiy full and accurate. The pseudo-
Augustinian Spemlhn (Corp. Scrip. Eccl. Lat. xii.), a collec-
tion of biblical extracts somewhat similar to the Tcstimoniu of
Cyprian has a text, possihly Spanish in origin, which contains
some elements belonging to the earlier form of the version.
Revised texts, which cannot be used as evidence for
the true Old L.atin save in exceptional cases, are met
with in Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome. Jerome's
quotations especially are often taken direct from the
Greek and usually agree with and W. Augustine (to
mention only the clearest cases) used Jerome's transla-
tion of Job from the Hexapfa, and in Judg. 5 he agrees
with the Hexaplar Codex Coislinianus against the true
Old Latin as preserved by Verecundus. Tertullian's
curious use of a text of the LXX mixed with Theodotion's
in the Book of Ezekiel has been already noticed (see
above, col. 5019).
T h e most complete MS of any part of the Old Latin
OT is the Lyons Heptateuch of the seventh century,
17. MSS. containing most of the Pentateuch, Joshua,
and Judges to 2031 (ed. by U. Robert, 1881
and 1900). A better text is to be found in the Freising
Palimpsest now a t Munich, of the fifth or sixth century
(Brudstucke einev vorhieronymianischen Ubersetzung
des Pentateuch ..
., by L. Ziegler, 1883); although
this MS shows some marks of literary revision it con-
tains a Cyprianic element, which in conjunction with the
general independence of its text places it in the first
rank of LXX authorities2 Its independence is especi-
ally noticeable in the latter chapters of Exodus.
Other Old Latin MSS, all of them palimpsests or
mere fragments, are :-the Vienna Palimpsest of Genesis
(? Oct.) and the historical books, fifth-sixth century,
a text which agrees remarkably with that of Lucifer,
and only requires to be well edited to take its place
among the very best MSS; the two Wiiuzhrg
Palimpsests, one of the Pentateuch, the other of the
Prophets, fifth-sixth century, both edited by E. Ranke,
1871 ; the Weingarten MS of the prophets, fifth century,
also edited by E. Ranke, 1868-1888. Besides these
there are smaller fragments at Quedlinburg. Vienna,
and S. Gallen. Of a slightly different character are
the two documents edited by Vercellone in his Yarice
Lectiones Vu&. Lat. Bibl. editionis, viz., extracts out
of Genesis and Exodus from the Codex Ottobonianus,
an eighth-century MS of the Latin Vulgate, and the
various readings written in the margin of a Visigothic
MS of the Latin Vulgate at Leon in Spain. These
various readings agree very closely with the Lucianic
text, much closer in fact than any other form of the Old
Latin, so the conjecture may be hazarded that they
were translated direct from some Greek MS.
A number of Latin Psalters are extant ; but none of
1 Printed in Pitra's Spicz'Zeegitrrn Solesmense and in Vercellone's
Yarie Lecfioncs.
2 See Ex. 17 14for the revision. In Ex. 32 I the MS has &ere
for to 'bring out' of E m t ( ~ . $ O ~ < L Ywith
) Cyprian, Test. 1 I.
For an instance of its positive value in comecting the Greek see
Ex. 40 3, where in place of rnrmduars + K L @ U T ~ V[TOG p p r u lov]
~ T L , is the reading of all other l!XX
T+ K Q T ~ ~ T ~ T & U ~which
authorities, Greek and Latin, and corresponds verbally with the
Massoretic text, we find in the Freising MS e t su$er eum pro-
pifiuforirrm; that is, it reads n'193 instead of ~ 3 7 5with , the
Samaritan and the Jer. Targ. Thus by Lagarde's canons the
Freising MS alone has preserved the true text of the LXX in
this passage.
5023
TEXT AND VERSIONS
them represents the earlier stages cf the versicn, as the
quotations of Cyprian differ widely from then1 al1.l
The OT ' Apocrypha '-Le., those books of the Greek
OT which are not in the Hebrew canon-were left more
~~. Apocrypha. or less untouched by Jerome ; in these
books, therefore, the Old Latin survives
in the Vulgate. In fact, the Vulgate text of Wisdom
and Ecclesiasticus does not differ appreciably from the
Cyprianic standard. It is therefore important to notice
the divergence in the arrangement of Ecclesiasticus
30-36 in the Greek and the Latin. ' In these chapters
the Greek order fails to yield a natural sequence, whereas
the Latin arrangement, which is also that of the Syriac
and Armenian versions, makes excellent sense. Two
sections [of the Greek], chap. 3025-3313~(&E ~ a h ~ p O -
,usuor ... @uhds ' I a ~ h p )and 'chap. 3 3 1 3 ~ - 3 6 1 6 ~
haprpb ~apsia . .. t u ~ a r o s?jypdrv?lua),have ex-
changed places. ... There can be little doubt that in
the exemplay from which, so far as is certainly known,
all our Greek MSS of thisbook [Ecclus.] are ultimately
derived, the pairs of leaves on which these sections were
severally written had been transposed, whereas the Latin
translator, working from a MS in which the transposition
had not taken place, has preserved the true order'
(Swete, pref. to vol. ii. of the Cambridge Septuagint, p.
A fact of this kind deserves to be particularly
mentioned, as it brings out the exceptional value of the
Old Latin for the text of the LXX, and the essential
homogeneousness of our Greek authorities notwith-
standing their numerous variations.s
A conspectus of the biblical quotations of the Latin Fathers
together with such Old Latin MSS as were then available is t i
he found in the great work of Sabatier (BihZiomm Sac?&wn
Lafinre P-wsiones Antipre, 1743 and 1751).
Jerome's edition of the N T was a simple revision of
an existing text ; but his version of the O T was wholly
ge:rew
I t is, in fact, a translation of the
into Latin independent of the
LXX, though Jerome frequently adopts renderings from
the other Greek editions, particularly that of Sym-
machus. The great work had been begun at the in-
vitation of Pope Damasus; but that powerful patron
died when only the Gospels had been issued (384A.D.),
and Jerome left Rome for Bethlehem. The various
parts of the OT were published separately and furnished
with prefaces, in which the merits of the Hebrew over
the Greek and the methods of translation adopted are
vigorously defended.
Thus the Latin church was confronted with a new
version of the Bible ahich had no external authority to
recommend it save the well- deserved reputation of
Jerome as the most learned scholar of his day. It is
not surprising that it met at first with opposition.
Its ultimate success is probably due in great measure
to Augustine. At first Augustine thought the new
version of the O T too revolutionary, and almost to
the end of his life clung t o a beliel in the inspiration
of the Seventy. H e wrote of Jerome's translation,
however, with increasing respect and occasionally
quotes from it (e.g., De Civitate Dei, 1843), and in
his last work-the genuine Specuhm, a collection of
biblical extracts, left unfinished at his death in 430-
he follows the new version wholly, except where he
quotes from memory. I n the sixth century Cassiodorus
seems to have treated the two versions on an equal
1 Cp also the remarks of Augustine (De Doct. Chisfinnu,
2 19) on Ps. 13 3.
2 The English version, both in AV and RV, follows the
Latin here.
3 The Syriac of Ecclesiaticns is not a witness for the LXX,
as it was made for the most part direct from the Hebrew ; the
Armenian here probably follows the Syriac as so often elsewhere.
The newly-recovered Hebrew text supports the Latin order, as
~~
might he Hnticipated.
With regard to the Latin text of Ecclesiasticus it bas recently
heenshownhy Thielmann that chaps. xlv.-1.are the work ofalater
hand. apparently the praise of the Jewish Fathers was inten-
tionaliy left out by the Christian translator as superfluous to his
ohjcct (cp J. H. A. Hart's edition of the Greek cod. 248).
5024
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
footing; but Isidore of Seville in the seventh century
uses Jerome's exclusively. From that time it really
deserves the name ' Vulgate' now universally applied to
i t , though as a matter of fact it was not so called before
the time of Roger 'Bacon. In Jerome's own works
V u k a t u means the Old Latin.
The difference between the Vulgate and the Old
Latin in the O T is so great that mixed recensions were
less readily formed than in the N T , though single
passages have suffered corruption from time to time in
the MSS. As was remarked above, the Latin church
in adopting the new version added to it from the Old
Latin those books which formed no part of the Hebrew
canon and were therefore left nntouched by Jerome.
The best MS of the Vulgate is considered to be the
Codex Amiatinus (a seventh-century M S of the whole
O T and N T , see § zx),the variations of which from the
authorised Clementine text have been not very accurately
published by Heyse. and Tischendorf (in 1873) ; a
valuable collection of readings is brought together in
the unfinished V a r i a Lecfiones of Vercellone.
The Vulgate is less useful to the textual critic than
the Old Latin, just as the later forms of the LXX which
contain interpolations and corrections from Theodotion
are not so useful as the earlier forms. That, however, is
because we have access to the Massoretic Hebrew in the
original and possess admirable renderings of it into the
vernacular. The early forms of the LXX are valuable
because by their aid we can correct some errors which
have befallen the exisling Hebrew text. It should not be
forgotten, however, that the LXX is often a bad trans-
lation to work from, many passages being quite devoid
of sense as they stand, a defect that was sometimes in-
tensified by the further translation of Greek into Latin.
The Vulgate, on the other hand, is the work of a com-
petent scholar, and gives the meaning of the Hebrew
with comparative accuracy and clearness. It was the
great good fortune of the Latin church that so excellent
a translator should h v e been raised up for the work,
and it is her great ::lory that neither the sentimental
associations of the old version nor the increasing
ignorance of the Dark Ages were able to interfere with
her final acceptance of S. Jerome's labours.
111. SYKIAC AN D OTHER VERSIONS
In the O T the Syriac Vulgate, commonly called
P2s/zZ?tu, is a translation made direct from the Hebrew.
60. PeshItt& Time and place of translation are alike
unknown. It is conjectured that it was
made at Edessa, the centre of Syriac literary culture,
and it seems to have been the work of Jews rather
than Christians.l There is no surviving trace of any
previous recension of the text : the earliest Syriac Father,
Aphraates, who is our chief quarry for pre-Vulgate
citations from the Syriac N T , quotes the O T in literal
accordance with the I'eshitta.
The character of i.he Peshitta varies in the different
books, which has been held as an indication that the
wrsion was the work of several hands. T h e Pentateuch
and Job (which in the Syriac follows the Pentateuch)
are rendered literally; some of the other books,
notably Chronicles, are very freely paraphrased. But
the Hebrew underlying the Syriac is in almost all
cases simply the Massoretic text.z Here and there,
1 Cp especially I Ch. 52, where the words '5 Judah pre-
vailed above his brethren and of him came the prince ' (i,>~)?re Codex Vaticanus. The fragments of the OT, so far as
rendered in the Peshijd From Judah shaZZ come forth King
Messiah.' Cp also J. Perles, Mektemata Peschitthoniana
(1859).
a Some of the best MSS supply a striking illustration of the
close connection of the Peshijtawith the Hebrew by the fact that a really different Hebrew, not agreeing with the LXX. I n Judg.
they contain a note marking the exact place where the half of a 148 Pesh. reads m i n n for ? D i n ? so as to make the sentence
book comes in the Massoretic text. Cornill(Ezechie2, Prol. 144) run 'when Samson had not bet eniered the marriage chamber.'
hrinqs this forward as a proof that the Amlrosianus has been re- Such readings occur so rarely however, that we must suppose
vised from the Hebrew ; but the phenomenon is to be found in
other MSS of other books and as far as we know the tendenLy of
the Syrians was to correc; from the LXX notfrom the Hebrew.
There are a few instances where the Syiiac seems to represent Version hy W. E. I:ames, 1897.
5025
TEXT AND VERSIONS
especially in the Prophets, there are unmistakable traces
of the influence of the LXX. No satisfactory explana-
tion of this influence has yet been reached ; it is possible
that it dates from the establishment of the church in
Edessa about the end of the second century.
In addition to the Hebrew canon the Syrians had
translations of the OT Apocrypha, in most cases derived
from the Greek ; but the Syriac Ecclesiasticus is partly
a rendering of the Hebrew. The dates of all these
translations are quite unknown ; but ' it seems tolerably
certain that alterations were made from time to time
with a view to harmonising the Syriac text with that of
the L X X ' (Wright's Syriac Literature, 4 ) , a process
which may have begun as early as the episcopate of
P%lbt (about zoo A . D. ).
The Peshitta is extant in many MSS of considerable antiquity.
The oldest kAown dated MS of any portion of OT or N T in any
language is the Cod. Add. 14,425 in the British Museum con-
taining Gen Ex. Nu. Dt. transcribed at Amid in the year
464 A.D. A'good text'of tde whole OT is presented by the
Cod. Ambrosianus of the sixth century, which contains, in
addition to the ordinary 'A ocrypha, the Apocalypse of
Baruch and 4 Esdras. This ME has been reproduced in photo-
lithography by Ceriani.
The most accessible edition of the OT Peshitta (without the
Apocrypha) is that prepared by Lee for the ' British and Foreign
Bible Society' in 1823 ; but it only reproduces with little varia-
tion the text of the London and the Paris Polyglott. In fact
all the printed editions go back to the ed. W'tzcejs in the
Paris Polyglott, which is a mere transcript of a very late M S
(now, at Paris), as conjecturally emended by the editor Gabriel
Sionita.1 Fw practical purposes, therefore, Ceriani's repro-
duction of the Amb~osianrrs15 the most satisfacton. text that
has yet appeared.
The earliest attempt at a Syriac version from the LXX
seems to have been that called by the name of Philoxenus,
61. Ejyfiacmade in 508 A.D. (see 30). Of thisversion
versions fragments of Isaiah survive in a hlS in the
I__ British Museum (edited by Ceriani in Manu-
Iruw nutf
Greek mcntu Sacra et Profana, v. 11-40). It seems
to have been a free revision of the Peshitta
by a Lucianic MS, producing a curious mixed text.
Of far more critical value is the Syriac version corre-
sponding to the Harclean revision of the NT, which is
commonly known as the Syro-HexupZar. This w a s
made at Alexandria in 616-617 A.D. by Paul, Bishop
of Tella (Assemani, B O 2 333 334). It contains a trans-
lation of Origen's text of the LXX with the asterisks
and obeli, together with many marginal renderings from
the other Greek editions; the style, moreover, of the
Syriac translation is so literal that the exact Greek re-
presented can be recovered with considerable accuracy.
T h e work of Paul of Tella formed Field's chief authority
in his reconstruction of the Hexapla.
The Syro-Hexaplar version is extant for most books of the
OT. The poetical and prophetical books are extant in a cod.
in the Ambrosian Library at Milan which has been published in
photo-lithography by Ceriani (.Won. Sac?. et ProJ 5). The
remains of the Pentateuch and Historical Books are collected in
Lagarde's Bi6liotkecre Syriacre etc., published in 1892.
At the beginning of the eighth century Jacob of Edessa made
a final effort to revise the Peshifta by thevarious Greek versions;
but his work does not seem to have ever gained any currency.
He made use of no materials which we do not possess from
other sonrces
The whole O T appears to have been translated into
the Palestinian dialect (see 5 ?I) ; but only small fraa-
I - I
6a. Palestinian ments now survive. It is a translation
I
from the Greek, certainly post-Hexa-
version. Dlaric. and it Drobablv uresented a text
closely akin to ;he 'Eusebian" editidn'(§ 52) and the
they have already been published, are collected in L a n d s
Anecdotu, vol. iv., in Anecdofu Oxoniemia (Semitic
this instance to have been thk result of a brilliant guess (cp
chap. 15 I).
1 See A n Apparatus Criticus t o Chronicles in t&e Peshigfa
5026
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
Series), and in a lectionary edited by Mrs. Lewis
(5t7rdia Sinaitica, 6 , 1897).
T h e general history of the Bible in Coptic has been
discussed in the section upon Egyptian versions of the
63. NT. T h e Bohairic version in the O T has
versions. the same characteristics as in the New, and
there is every reason to assign it to the
same date, viz., the sixth^ century. It is not even yet
edited in full; but the Prophets have been edited by
Tattam, the Pentateuch and Psalms by Lagarde, and
lately Proverbs by Bouriant.
The Sahidic version from its greater antiquity is of
more importance. Of this the Borgian MSS, together
with other fragments previously collected, were admir-
ably edited by Ciasca (Rome, 1885-9). T h e Psalms
have been edited by Budge from a seventh-century MS
in the British Museum (1898),and now lately again by
Kahlfs. There is also a large addition to O T Sahidic
texts to be found in Maspero, iWission archhZ. fyanq.,
tom. 6. The general character of the text resembles that
of the first hand of Cod. Marchalianus ( Q ) ; that is,
it is akin to what we are accustomed to call the Hesychian
recension of the LXX ($ 52). Ciasca himself ( 2 5 5 ) points
out that the Minor Prophets show clear signs of
revision ' iuxta archetypum hebrami.' The text of
Daniel is that of Theodotion, as in the Greek MSS.
T h e type of Greek text followed by the Sahidic in the
Psalms is represented by U, the fragments o i a papyrus
book in the British Museum (see F. E. Brightman in the
Journ. of Theol. Studies, 2275). U is now considered
to be of the sixth or the seventh century, and is said
to have come from a monastery near Thebes. Doubtless,
therefore, it gives us the text of the Psalter as sung in
the earliest days of Christian monasticism, and where
it is defective it may be reconstructed from the Sahidic
as edited by Budge, Rahlfs, and Ciasca.
The chief interest of the Sahidic version centres in
the Book of Job. As has been explained above ( $ 55), the
original Greek translation of Job omitted between three
and four hundred lines, or half verses, which were
supplied in the Hexupla under asterisk. The Sahidic
leaves these lines out, and it is generally supposed that
it therein represents the pre-Origenian K O W + ~ K ~ O U L S ,
like the Old Latin. But apart from the difficulty
of assigning to the Sahidic version of Job the high
antiquity which would be required for a translation
uninfluenced by the HexapZa-w-e should have to think
of the second century, instead of the end of the third or
the beginning of the fourth-there are other reasons
which are inconsistent with this view. It is far more in
accordance with all the facts to regard the Sahidic Job
as a translation of Origen's revised text of the L X X , with
the passages under asterisk omitted. The Sahidic text,
when it is examined closely, cannot claim to preserve
even so large a measure of independence as the Greek
Cod. A ; we may fairly describe 6*as a text of the K O W ? ~
interpolated from the HexapZa, but the Sahidic is
Origenian from post to finish.
The im ortance of this question for the history of the Greek
Bible mates it necesaary to indicate the chief signs of the
dependence of the Sahidic on the Hexafila.
I . Ciasca uses five Sahidic codices for Job. One of these
the Bodleian MS edited by E r m a contains the Hexaplaril
additions as an integral part of the k t . The 400 half-verses,
therefore, were not altogether unknown in Upper Egypt.
2. A few of the lines which are distinctly assigned to Aquila
or Theodotion in our Hexaplar authorities are found in the
Sahidic. Thus Job 30 206 and 226 (from Theod.) are in their
ordinary place; 9 156 (from Aq.) is inserted after 71. 1 4 .
3. After Job 11 20.f: @A adds rap' a i d y i n uo$ia rdr Gdvaprr.
Syr.-Hex. obelises these words--le., the$ are a genuine part of
@, though not in the Hebrew. They are omitted by BNC and
also hv the Sahidic, which thus represents here a criiically
rmised text. [See also 3 17 Ithavrav ; 7 IT om. Qvoitu.1
4. The original Greek for iiiy* & in Job9 36 appears to have
been OX 06 r j bvreim) (cp Hex. ad Ioc.). Symmachus and
Theodotion had oh p i 6rrbxodq a h + . In the Hexapla, followed
b the Greek MSS, a conflation of the two was made, producing
d w% hr. ahri &a p$ burrirp This conflation is reproduced
in the Sahidic.'
5. The clearest case of the dependence of the Sahidic on
5027
TEXT AND VERSIONS
Origen is in JobPSarf which runs thus in the Hexapla, the
lines from Theodotion bzng italicised :
It [viz., Wisdom] is concealed from every man,
andfrom thz/o?uls of the haven it.is hid,
Destrzrction and Death said:
But (61) we have heard the fame thereof.
Omit the italics and the first person plural in the fourth line
is meaningless ; i; is impossible t o suppose that it could have
been the original form of the Greek. Yet that is exactly what
the Sahidic gives. The true LXX is probably preserved by
Clement of Alexandria (Strom. vi. 6 763) who quotes u. 21 thus :
Akyer 6 &E 6 Qrohai r&r FIV ahoii o h e 2 o p c v +ovhv 6;
a h t $xoduapeu (cp yn:5 37). This not beiiig an accurate
rendering of the Hebrew, it was emended in the fZexapZa by the
help of Theodotion; hut simply to omit the lines here taken
from Theodotion, as has been done by the Sahidic, cannot be
managed without ruining the sense, and (we may add) revealing
to all time the Origenian source of the text.
The Ethiopic version dates from the fourth or the fifth
century ; but the existing codices are late and seem to
64. Other have been much revised, some frommedizeval
versions. Greekor Arabic texts, some from the Hebrew.
Gen.-Kings has been edited by Dillmann,
Psalms by Ludolf ( I ~ o I ) ,Song by Nisselius (1656),
Lamentations by Bachmann (1893). T h e best critical
discussion on this version is to be found in Cornill's
EzechieZ, 36-48.
T h e Armenian version appears to contain in the O T ,
as in the N T , both Greek and Syriac elements. The
best edition is still that of Zohrab, published in 1805.
Some Armenian codices have the Hexaplar critical
marks ( ' Scrivener,' ed. 4. 2153).
The Gothic of the sixth, and the Slavonic of the ninth
century, both of which are intimately connected in origin
with Constantinople, are remarkable for their affinity with
the Lucianic text (Lagarde's Lucian, 14, 15). Of the
Gothic OT, however, only fragments of Ezra B, chap. 2
and Neh. 5-7 survive, besides a few verses of Gen. 5.
The Aradic versions of the O T are of various char-
acter and value. T h e version printed in the Polyglotts
is derived from a MS now at Paris (Colb. goo=
d e Sacy, I ) written in Egypt in the sixteenth century.
T h e Pentateuch is the translation of Sa'adia from the
Hebrew ; but the Prophets were translated from an old
uncial MS of 6 akin to A (Cornill's EzecfzieZ, 49-57).
The Targums, or Aramaic paraphrases of the OT
prepared for use in the Synagogue, contain elements
66. Targums, of various dates. They differ from the
versions hitherto considered in having
a directly edificatory aim ; they are, in fact, paraphrases
rather than translations, although the style of some of
them is often very literal. They take their rise from
the custom, described in .Lk. 4 16 8, of giving a short
explanation of the sacred Hebrew text in the Aramaic
vernacular of Palestine. At first the Targum was a
free oral exposition; then it gradually acquired fixed
forms, and at last it was reduced to writing.
T h e written Targum is found in MSS sometimes
alone, sometimes verse by verse with the Hebrew text.
There are two Targums to the Pentateuch (besides the
Samaritan Targum ; see SAMARITANS, $ 5 a ) , the official
Ba6ybnian Targum, known by the name of the reputed
author OnkeZos ( n i $ p ~ .& p i i ~ ) . and
~ the Jerusalem
Targum, also known as [Pseudo-] Jonathan. ' Jeru-
salem ' ( Yerzjshalmmi) means Palestinian ; in fact, this
Targum gives to a great extent the old popular exegesis,
though its extant form dates from after Mohammed.
There once existed a 'Jerusalem' Targum to the
Prophets ; but the Babylonian recension alone has come
down to us ; it is commonly cited by its reputed author
Jonathan ben Uzziel. The Hagiographa are also pre-
served in a Babylonian recension ; but they are of varied
character, being to some extent private literary works,
since the Hagiographa were not regularly read through
in the Synagogues like the Law and the Prophets.
Job is a comparatively literal rendering ; Proverbs
appears to have been made up from the Peshitta;
Esther is extant in two forms, both wildly paraphrastical.
The Targums are to be found in the great rabbinical
1 Onkelos is probably a corruption of & ~ yd q t d a .
5028
 TEXT AND VERSIONS
editions of the OT. e . , + , the Bomberg edition of 1517,
ed. by Felix Praten:.is. Onkelos has been edited by
Berliner in 1884, the Prophets and Hagiographa by
Lagarde in 1872, 1873.
'The Hebrew text from which the Targums were
made is practically identical with that of the Massoretes.'
Their value for us is not so much the text they attest,
as the prejudices they display. They show us the
atmosphere of thought in which the tradition of the
meaning of the Or was preserved, an atmosphere abso-
lutely unliterary and unartistic, and anxious at any
cost to remove the anthropomorphism of earlier Hebrew
religion (see the amazing list of locutions in Cornill's
Ezechiel, 123). Some of the toning down of old
metaphors or reminiscences of ancient heathendom is
very ancient ; even Qi does not call God by His personal
name but translates nin, by [A] Kljpros (NAMES, col. 3321),
and refuses altogether to call him a Rock [Heb. 118,
e.g., Ps. 95 I]. T h e Targums simply exhibit this
tendency in an exaggerated form. The popular exegesis
has now and then influenced the Massoretic text. But
the Masoretes were too good scholars simply to point
the true text wrong ; it almost always happens in such
cases that there is some corruption in the transmitted
consonants, which formed the starting- point for the
wrong interpretation. T h e mode of procedure by
which the critic recognises the corruption is somewhat
as follows. A grammatical anomaly in M T surprises
h i m ; he refers to the Targum and finds it carefully
reproduced, perhaps, in the midst of quite a free
paraphrase. Evidently the anomalous punctuation is
intentioizul, and as the prophets wrote better Hebrew
than the Targumists, it is only too likely that the
traditional interpretation of the whole passage is wrong.
Now and then it is possible to restore the original, to
the great gain of literature.
No better instance can be given than Is. 63 1-6. Here we
find a series of verbs pointed as jussives instead of with w5w
consecutive ; this arouses suspicion. The same verbs are taken
as futures io the Targum, and the reference to future unish-
ments upon the heathen is more pointed than in the &brew.
N o w 63 1-6 is the only passage in Deutero-Isaiah that contains
the name of any of the petty nations of Palestine. in fact the
sudden and inartistic mention of 'Edom' has 'given much
trouble to commentators. In the popular Jewish exegesis, how-
ever, ' Edom ' regularly stands for Rome and the Roman Empire
(cp, e.g., Tarsum to Lam. 42rx). It is out of place here,z and
we should read with Lagarde (Projh. Chufd. p. 1) 0 4 p for
011x2 and 1 ~ 5 n for ; n r m , so that the sentence runs : Who is
this that cometk aZZ redahed, wit? garrnents stained more
than the gatherer of rhe vintage? The corruption of 21. I ,
which took its rise in popular exegesis, was the excuse for the
wrong pointing of the verbs in 7m.3-6 by the Mssoretes.
An article like th.e present ought in strictness to
consider what mav be called the >re-canonical bistorv
It is almost demonstrable
66. Cort.ection of the text.
that some of the most serious corrup-
of MT. tions oricinated in the documents before
D
they became part of the OT. Such are all the variations
which can be traced to confnsions arising from the Old
Hebrew alphabet. E.g., sun 'for the dew ' in Dt. 33 13
corresponds to the more appropriate $yo ' above' in Gen.
4925, as in both cases the word is contrasted with
0
' beneath. ' But in the older character is and p ) is @,
so the corruption was easily effected. Again, the
influence of Hosea2 17 ( ' I will take away the names of
the Baalim out of her mouth') should be mentioned.
This verse was interpreted to mean that the very names
of heathen gods were unlawful to be used ; accordingly
the vowels of bosheth ( ' shame ' ) are substituted for the
real vowels in such words as T$heth and .W&xh (also
'JfoZuch'). I n Amos526 K a i w d n (Le.. ' S a t u r n ' ) has
been vocalised with the vowels of Sikkus (i.e., ' abomin-
1 This is especially the case with the Babylonian Targum.
The Jcr. Targiim sometimes differs-e.r., in Exod. 4 0 3 it reads
ni33 for n313, with the Samaritan nnd the Old Latin.
2 B of this pasage cannot be correctly preserved, for the
constant rendering of 'Edom' in the Prophets is i 'IGovpaia,
not (as here) 'E66p.
5029
TEXT AND VERSIONS
ation'), producing the form (Chizm,AX'). By a
more violent change Saul's son 'Zsh-bn'al ( #Baal's-
man '), preserved almost intact as EshbanZ in I Ch. 833,
becomes Ish-bosheth ( ' Man-of-Shame ' ) in the more
frequently read book of Kings. In later Jewish writings
this tendency is carried into original literature ; there is
no reason to doubt that the name Abed-nego, evidently
meant for Abed-nedo ( ' Worshipper-of-Neb0 '), is the
invention of the author of Daniel, not a scribe's
blunder. It is in Daniel (1211) that we find o,zw ylpw
(the a Abomination which maketh desolate '), an inten-
tional perversion of ~ 3 1 53 ~~ 2 ,the title of Zeus BEEX-
ualqu.
W e are now concerned, however, with the corruptions
which have befallen the text in the course of transmission,
and here, as Wellhausen remarks, the chief agents have
been chance and caprice, not deliberate falsification
(cp Well.-Bleek, J 295 8 ) . Space will only allow of
a few examples ; but those given below will sufficiently
exhibit the commonest kinds of corruption, while at the
same time they bring forward the instances where modern
scholarship has been most successful in restoring the
true reading, whether by means of the ancient versions
or by simple conjecture.
Conjecture is not always a mere arbitrary procedure,
it may be based on the surest of all exegetical and
critical rules, viz., the explanation of passages which
are obscure by those which are plain and free from
suspicion. Thus we can be quite certain by comparing
Zeph. 214 with Is. 3411 that for >in, ' desolation,' we
must read ~ i y ', raven,' and that the mysterious iiiztt
not only contains the name of some bird, but must be a
corruption of qiv~,,yanshcgjh or yansh@h, ' the eagle-
owl' (see O W L , 4). The translation then runs : ' Both
the pelican and the porcupine shall lodge in the
chapiters thereof ; hark to the eagle-owl in the window,
the raven on the threshold 1 '
Although the Massoretes point well where the text
is sound, the smallest error definitely represented in the
consonantal text is sufficient to throw them out. Thus
the long final nun of $ 3 ]J~ ( ' verily the poor of
the flock') in Zech.11711, was doubtless the cause
which prevented the first two words from being run
together and vocalised i w x 'I-y??, kJnn'u'ni has-@n--i. e . ,
' the sheep-dealers.' There are of course a few cases
where the restoration of the true text depends on a
point of archzological knowledge which might easily
fade from the narrowly grammatical Hebrew tradition.
Thus in Jer. 46 15 we should divide IGDJ ynn into yiin
!q D;, and translate with d ' Why has Apis fled?' (cp
APE). Again, it was not till some progress had been
made in Assyrian that Halevy was able to recognise in
75.n (Ezek. 27 X I ) the name Cilicia, the YiZaaRku of the
cuneiform monuments.
@-in its original form-often preserves excellent
readings which have quite disappeared from our other
authorities. Thus ' i n 2 K. 1510 Gratz's clever con-
jecture (Gesch. der Juden, ii. 199) oy& for the un-
Hebraic py-$lp is confirmed by Lucian' (ev IepAaap,
quoted in Driver, TBS, p. lii note). Another example
is fiirnished by Dr. Hayman's too little known emenda-
tion of Dt.3321 (Prw. Cambridge PhiZoZ. SOL. 1895.
p. 8). the essence of which is the substitution of ii9DNn.i
for the impossible Knq 119". The phrase is then exactly
parallel with ii. 5.2 Here also d appears to support
the true reading; but iisr I K E2peplaOq~ r;r dpx6uswu
uuuq~pPuwu tipa d p x ~ ~ oXu& h is too paraphrastical
to suggest the actual change required. The cause of
the corruption here in the Massoretic text may have
1 Nestle, ZATCV, 1884, p. 2 4 3 ; see ABOMINATION
OF
D ESOLATION.
2 Tranqlate: 'And [Gad] saw the first fruits were for him
for there was the allotment of the Laweiver. and so the chiefs Gf
a people were assembled together.' The ieference appears to
be to the settlement of Gad on the E. of Jordan (cp Nu. 32).
5030