Aramaic Peshitta
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page XXXVII - XLI
XXXVII
THE NESTORIANS WERE FAMOUS FOR THEIR SCHOOLS. In these schools the copying of the scriptures was a first part of the education given. For instance, in the school or college at Nisibis, A. D. 490, the rules required that "the brethren admitted to it, should not, except from urgent necessity, cease from writing, reading, and expounding" Scripture. As to the writing of Scripture, they were "in the first year to write the Pentateuch, and a book of Paul; in the second, the Psalms and Prophets; in the third, the New Testament." (pg. 125.) There were secular studies, but the young had to begin with the study of Scripture.
AS TO THE AGREEMENT OF DIFFERENT COPIES; most of those which have been brought to Europe, are not Nestorian, but Jacobite copies. But so far as the Nestorian and the Jacobite copies differ, the greater reverence which the Nestorians had for the Peshito, justifies a higher esteem for the exactness of their text. Wichelhaus says, "Testimonies prove that the text of the Nestorians is altogether the same as that of the ancient Peshito version." But the differences between their early texts, and other texts of early date, are so little, that Wichelhaus says, "The texts of copies written in cents. v. and vi., in Mesopotamia, and which bear the date when they were written recorded upon them, and the text of copies written at a later time, alike of Jacobites and of Maronites, of Nestorians, and of Melchites, is a text so entirely the same, and with such constancy of likeness, that, in the Syriac version, NO PLACE WAS GIVEN FOR RECENSIONS, such as are said to have been made in the GREEK TEXT, even in the first centuries." (pp. 150, 151.) This answer, by the voice of fact, denies almost the possibility of such a recension of the Syriac text, as Dr. Hort, in his Introduction to the Greek Testament of Drs. Westcott and Hort, 1881, first conjectures, and then treats as "certain." (pg. 84.)
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2. THE JACOBITES BEAR LIKE TESTIMONY, as to the origin of the Peshito. They are called Monophysites, that is, persons who believe that in Christ there is but ONE NATURE, as well as one person. Apollinaris, bishop of Laodicea, had taught, before the time of Nestore, that Christ had NO HUMAN MIND, that he was only Deity and a human body. About A. D. 448, Eutyches, an abbot of Constantinople, spread this belief, while opposing the Nestorians. (Mosheim, cent. v.) At Ephesus, where the Council of 431 condemned Nestore, another Council in 449, condemned Flavian, Patriarch of Constantinople, and others, for excommunicating Eutyches. The Greeks called this Council "a band of robbers," because it "carried everything by fraud and violence." (Mosheim.) Gibbon says, "It is certain that Flavian, before he could reach the place of his exile, expired on the third day, of the wounds and bruises he had received at Ephesus. The synod has been justly branded as a gang of robbers and assassins." (Decline, ch. xlvii.) Wichelhaus (pg. 134) says that the Emperors Zeno and Anastasius were favourable to the Monophysites, (A. D. 474-518); but that when the Emperor Justin (518-527), began to remove the Monophysite bishops from their sees, the Monophysites, chiefly by the influence of Jacob Baradaeus, separated themselves from the Greek church, and became a distinct body, thenceforth called Jacobites, from their connection, it is said, with Jacob Baradaeus. The Nestorians more abounded in the East of Asia; the Jacobites in the West, and in Egypt.
A body with such an origin, and such a creed, cannot be said to have much claim to general confidence; but Gregory Bar Hebraeus, one of their learned men, is much relied on. Dr. Westcott calls him "one of the most learned and accurate of Syrian writers." (On the Canon, pg. 236.)
"GREGORY BAR HEBRAEUS," Dr. Westcott says, "relates that the New Testament Peshito was made in the time of Thaddaeus and Abgarus, king of Edessa, when, according to the universal opinion of ancient writers, the Apostle went to proclaim Christianity in Mesopotamia. This statement HE REPEATS SEVERAL TIMES, and once, on the authority of Jacob, a deacon of Edessa, in THE FIFTH CENTURY......It is worthy of notice that Gregory assumes THE APOSTOLIC ORIGIN of the New Testament Peshito AS CERTAIN; for while he gives three hypotheses as to the date of the Old Testament Version, he speaks of this as A KNOWN AND AN ACKNOWLEDGED FACT." (On the Canon, pg. 236.) Bishop Walton said that if the Peshito was "made by some one of the Apostles, it would have divine and equal authority with the other sacred books." It is therefore worthy of special notice that, according to Bar Hebraeus, the Peshito was "known" to be of "Apostolic origin," and therefore was known to be of the same authority as the Greek Text. Even Canon Westcott calls attention to the unwavering and unqualified nature of this testimony to a "known fact."
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BAR HEBRAEUS was born 1226, and died 1286. He said, speaking first of the Old Covenant Peshito-Syriac, --"Respecting this Syriac translation, there were three opinions; the first, that it was translated in the time of kings Solomon and Hiram; the second, that Asa the priest translated it, when the Assyrian sent him to Samaria; the third, that it was translated in the days of Thaddaeus the apostle, and of Abgar, the king of Edessa, when also they translated the New Covenant in the same Peshito form;" that is, in the same simple or faithful manner. (See the Syriac words in Prager, on Old Covenant Peshito, pg. 7; and a Latin translation in Wichelhaus, pg. 61.)
BAR HEBRAEUS records also, in another place, the fact that JACOB OF EDESSA says, "that translators were sent by Thaddaeus the apostle, and Abgar, the king of Edessa, into Palestine, and translated the Scripture from Hebrew into Syriac." (See the Syriac words in Walton's Prolegomena, xiii. 16.) The words of Jacob of Edessa refer to the Old Covenant Peshito; but Bar Hebraeus in the above extract says that the New Covenant Peshito was made at the time when Jacob of Edessa said, in this passage, that persons were sent into Palestine to translate the Old Covenant Scriptures.
THE JACOBITES SEEM TO HAVE ALTERED TWO PASSAGES in some of their copies of the Peshito, to justify such expressions as that "God was crucified for us," a statement which Gibbon says was "imagined by a monophysite bishop." (Decline, ch. xlvii. The Trisagion.)
In ACTS xx. 28, most of their copies have "the church of THE ANOINTED, which he purchased with his blood;" which is in agreement with other copies of the Peshito. But Wichelhaus says that Sabarjesus, a Nestorian Presbyter, mentions Jacobite copies which had "the church OF GOD;" and that Asseman found in the Vatican library a monophysite copy which has "of God." (pg. 150.) Our common English Version has "of God;" but Griesbach and Tischendorf adopted "of the Lord," as the true Greek text. The general testimony of the Syriac copies is that "of the Anointed" is the true text of the Peshito.
In HEBREWS ii. 9, most of the Jacobite copies say of Jesus, "He, God, in his merciful favour, tasted death on behalf of every man." This reading could be used to defend the statement that God was crucified. The Nestorian copies have, "For he [Jesus], apart from God, (or the Godhead)," etc. Origen, nearly 200 years before Nestore lived, mentioned Greek copies which had a like reading. He died about A. D. 254. Theodore, bishop of Mopsuestia, a celebrated Greek writer, who died about A. D. 429, said that some persons had removed the reading, "without God," and had substituted, "by the merciful favour of God." He said also that the context shows that the apostle was not speaking of God's mercy, but of the relation between the Deity and manhood of Christ. (See Tischendorf's 8th edition under Hebrews ii. 9.) Tischendorf says, "From these testimonies, it is CERTAIN that the reading, without God, did not originate with the Nestorians; for Origen found it in his copies." There is no reason, therefore, to suppose that the Nestorian text of the Peshito in Hebrews ii. 9, is the result of any change made by them; but there is reason, on the contrary, to regard it as part of the original text of the Peshito; and a proof that the Greek copies which had the same reading in the time of Origen were correct.
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THE JACOBITES DID NOT CONTINUE, as the Nestorians did, to treat the Syriac as BETTER THAN THE GREEK TEXT. About A. D. 616, a new Syriac version of the New Covenant, was made by them. It was from the Greek text, and followed it closely. It is called the Philoxenian Syriac, from Philoxenus, its patron. Wichelhaus says that the Jacobites seem to have thought that it would be wicked to supplant the Peshito, and yet to have preferred the new version. He thinks that the name Peshito came into use at this time, and among them, because the Nestorians had no need of a distinct name for the Peshito. They had not, as the Jacobites had, a second Syriac version.
Wichelhaus says also, that all the Jacobite teachers took delight in making changes, called corrections and emendations, (pg. 205); and that after the Philoxenian version was made, they began to conform, even their copies of the Peshito, to the Greek text, so that, in estimating the worth of copies written after that date, inquiry needs to be made whether they are Jacobite or Nestorian. (pg. 231.)
3. - THE MARONITES GIVE LIKE TESTIMONY RESPECTING THE ORIGIN OF THE PESHITO. Bishop Walton says, "The Maronites were so called from Maro, an abbot. They were reconciled to the Pope, and to the church of Rome, A. D. 1182. They have a college of Maronites at Rome, founded by Gregory 13th," (who died in 1585), "from which priests and bishops are sent into their country." (Walton, Polyglot, Prolegomena xiii. 2.) They are an offshoot from the Jacobites. About the close of the seventh century many of the Jacobites fled, to save their lives, partly to mountains in the north of Mesopotamia, and partly to Mount Lebanon. Those who fled to Lebanon divided into two parties; one party submitted to the emperors of Constantinople, and were called Melchites, that is, Imperialists; the other party maintained a more independent existence, and were called Mardaites, that is, Rebels. Of this party John Maro became a leader, and a Patriarch. J. S. Asseman, in his Bibliotheca Orientalis, vol. i., pg. 517, shows that Maro opposed both the Monophysites and the Nestorians. Maro seems to have been a Monothelite, that is, one who held that in Christ there was only ONE WILL. J. S. Asseman contends that he held the creed of Rome, -- that of two natures and one person; but Gibbon says that the Maronites, before they joined Rome, were Monothelites. He says of them, "The unfortunate question of ONE WILL, or operation in the two natures of Christ, was generated by their curious leisure.....Their country extends from the ridge of Mount Libanus to the shores of Tripoli......In the twelfth century the Maronites, abjuring the Monothelite [ -- the ONE WILL ] error, were reconciled to the Latin Churches of Antioch and Rome......The learned Maronites of the college of Rome have vainly laboured to absolve their ancestors from the guilt of heresy," that is, of Monothelism. (Ch.xlvii.)
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GABRIEL SIONITA, is one of the many learned Maronites who have become eminent since the erecton of the Maronite college at Rome. Ancient Syriac writing was a kind of short-hand, in which there was little more than the consonants written. While it was a living language, the vowels could be supplied by the reader, though not without liability to error. By degrees, signs were used, placed at the top and bottom of the consonants, to indicate the true vowel sounds. Bishop Walton, speaking of the Peshito, says, "That most illustrious man, Gabriel Sionita, first put vowel-points to the Syriac; for before that time all manuscripts were destitute of vowel-points," or nearly so. This was done by him for Michael de Jay, in his splendid work, the Paris Heptaglot, A. D. 1628-1645. Bishop Walton gives the following testimony of Sionita to the Peshito.
SIONITA, says Walton, "testifies that the Peshito has always been held in the greatest veneration, and held to be of THE GREATEST AUTHORITY by all the populations which use the Chaldaic or Syriac language, and has been publicly accepted and read in all their most ancient churches, formed in Syria, Mesopotamia, Chaldaea, Egypt, and finally, in those which are dispersed and spread throughout all parts of the East. In this language they read, not only the Scriptures, but liturgies also, and celebrate divine worship, even in those places where Syriac is not today the mother-tongue; although from those liturgies, and the longer responses of the people, it is sufficiently evident that those liturgies were commonly known and understood WHEN THEY FIRST BEGAN TO BE USED." (Prol. xiii. Sec. 18.) In reference to Scripture, "the greatest authority" is DIVINE AUTHORITY.