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Etheridge
Translation - Introduction
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INTRODUCTION TO THE PESCHITO SYRIAC NEW TESTAMENT:
TRANSLATED
INTO ENGLISH BY JOHN WESLEY ETHERIDGE.
COPYRIGHT 1996 BY GARY CERNAVA.
IT did not occur to me till the following sheets had been committed to
the press, that the present translation of the Gospels may possibly be
considered in some quarters as an attempt to impugn the excellence of our
authorized English version. Should such be the case, I would hereby
earnestly disclaim any intention of the kind. My sole wish has been to offer
in our own language an accurate representation of the evangelic canon, as
read from the primeval days by the Christians of the East. The invaluable
English version in ordinary use among us having been made from the Greek,
and the following translation from a text extant in a tongue altogether
different, a comparison like that now deprecated can only be instituted by a
departure from the common principles of reason and equity.
At the same time I would suggest, that a collation of the one text with
the other, for the purpose of ascertaining the verbal sameness or
disagreement of the gospel testimony as given by two witnesses so perfectly
impartial and independent, will form a profitable study to the Christian,
and impart a profound conviction of the immutable integrity of the New
Testament record.
I have retained the titles of the sections for public reading, merely as
illustrative of some points referred to in the preceding sketches of the
Syrian communions.* On every other account they would have been omitted; not
only because, in certain instances, they betray a relationship to
superstitions which are unworthy of the Christian name, but because they
interfere with the continuity of the sacred discourse, and in some minds may
tend to weaken the perception of that divine authority which reigns alone,
and for ever, through the entire compass of the inspired writings.
LONDON,
September, 1846.
* The "titles of the sections for public reading" have been omitted from the
text.
THE FOUR GOSPELS AFTER THE PESCHITO SYRIAC.
VERITATI PRORSUS EST CONSENTANEUM, INTRA IPSA ECCLESIÆ CHRISTI INITIA, VEL
AB APOSTOLIS IPSIS, VEL AB EORUM DISCIPULIS, VERSIONEM SYRIACAM PROFECTAM.
*** THIS translation of the Four Gospels has been made directly from the
Syriac. The text chiefly followed is that of Gutbir, 1664, compared with the
editions of Paris, G. F. Boderiani, 1584, Walton in the London Polyglot, and
Schaaf's of 1709. The rubrics for the lessons are from Walton. The object of
the translator having been to offer in English an accurate representation of
these venerable eastern scriptures, the version is as literal as the
structure of the two languages seems to admit. From a desire to preserve the
air and manner, as well as meaning, of the original, he has retained the
Syrian orthography of the proper names, and has left some of the peculiar
denominatives of the gospel narrative untranslated. Such are the titles of
Pharishee, the Pharisees, Zadukoyee, the Sadducees, Sophree, the Scribes,
Malphona, Doctor, &c. The name of the Divine Being, ALOHA, (the ALOHA of the
Hebrew revelation,) is also left unaltered. In the expression of these names
the method of the Nestorians has been followed rather than that used by the
Western Syrians, because in the former the pronunciation more fully accords
with the orthography.
THE work here submitted completes the translation of the Syriac New
Testament, begun in a former volume.* We may now compare the sacred text, as
read in the Eastern churches for sixteen or seventeen centuries, with that
which, during the same lapse of time, has been received in the West. The
comparison of these independent witnesses will demonstrate the essential
integrity and incorrupt preservation of the inspired documents of the
Christian dispensation.
For the seeming delay which has attended the publication of the volume,
an apology is due to those friends who have inquired, from time to time, for
its advertised appearance. But the minute attention required by the nature
of the work itself, and the circumstance, that the only time in general
which could be spared for the prosecution of it has been that of uncertain
intervals in the course of regular professional duties, will sufficiently
account for the slowness of its progress. The former volume, on the Gospels,
was prepared during a residence on the Continent, when the greater part of
his time was at the translator's own disposal; but nearly all the present
work has been accomplished amid the daily toils of the Christian ministry in
London, and in hours which might, in some respects, have been advantageously
spent in mental or bodily recreation, or repose.
At the tribunal of biblical criticism the writer respectfully prays for a
kind, but impartial, judgment on the correctness or incorrectness of the
translation. It is very proper for him to attest his own belief, that,
through the adorable grace of God, he has been enabled to give a version in
all essential respects a faithful representation of the Syriac Scriptures;
did he not believe so, he would not presume to offer it: but that class of
readers who, though intelligent students of the Bible, have not directed
their attention to this branch of inquiry, will naturally look for a
corroborative testimony to the correctness of such an estimate, that their
confidence in the translation may be warranted by some competent authority.
It is on this account, as well as with a view to the thankful adoption of
any improvement which may be pointed out, that he would solicit this
adjudication.
For the sake of rendering the work as complete as possible, there is
added a translation of the Epistles and Book of Revelation, wanting in the
Peschito Canon, from the more modern Syriac texts first edited by Dr.
Pococke and Louis De Dieu, so as to comprise all the holy books which we
receive as inspired New-Testament Scripture.
With regard to the Acts and Epistles, the edition which the translator
has followed has been that of Schaaf, on account of its having long been a
sort of textus receptus of the Syriac Testament throughout the theological
world. This has been collated with others, as occasionally indicated in the
margin. Notwithstanding the labours of learned men in this department since
the time of Schaaf, we are yet in want of a critical edition of the Peschito
text both of the Old and New Testaments; as likewise a uniform collection of
the books of the Hexaplar Syriac, and an edition of the Harkleian New
Testament, with such remains of the Philoxenian as may exist in the MSS.
brought home by the late Mr. Rich, or among those with which the treasures
of the British Museum have been amplified through the diligence of
Archdeacon Tattam. On this subject much interest has been awakened by the
preface of the Rev. Mr. Cureton's edition of the Syrian Ignatius.
In this volume we have omitted the Rubrics of the oriental lessons from
the body of the text, and given them in a separate collection or index at
the end. Interspersed among the Scripture itself, as in the translation of
the Gospels, such matters are confessedly out of place. This first index is
followed by another, which is intended to facilitate the collation of any
particular portion of the Eastern and Western Testaments. (These have been
omitted from the text.)
For the prologues which introduce the translation little need be said.
They will be received for what they are worth. The first part condenses a
variety of information which would have been very acceptable to the writer
himself several years ago, and which he presumes will be welcome to some who
are now at the outset of their inquiries. In the second part we enter a more
elevated and more spiritual region. It is good to be there ! Perhaps this
section would not be useless in Bible classes and family readings, as well
as in the cabinet of the solitary Christian.
January 1st, 1849.
* The Syrian Churches; their early History, Liturgies, and Literature. With
a literal Translation of the Four Gospels, from the Peschito, or Canon of
holy Scripture in use among the oriental Christians from the earliest Times.
London. Longmans. 1846.
As with the Gospels already published, the following version of the Acts
and Epistles has been made directly from the Syriac. We have Latin
translations of the Peschito, by Sionita, De la Boderie, and Schaaf; but
they have not obtained the entire approval of the learned. The Latin
translations in the Polyglots are not to be fully depended on. Dr. Pococke,
who, as an Arabic scholar, Golius has said, was second to no man, has
pronounced the condemnation of the Latin rendering of the Arabic scriptures
in those great works; and with respect to that of the Peschito, Michaelis
affirms, that the author, Sionita, had " executed it with the greatest
inaccuracy; as almost every page betrays either hurry or ignorance, and not
seldom both qualities united ;" while of the translation of Schaaf it may be
observed, that, though not liable to this sweeping charge of inaccuracy, it
is not sufficiently idiomatic to be a true representation of the Syrian
Testament. It is with the utmost diffidence that I offer this effort in our
own language. Should it assist any of my fellow-disciples in their inquiry
into the meaning of the divine oracles, the solitary toil of some years will
not have been in vain. I have endeavoured to render the Syriac as literally
as the structure of the two languages would allow; having been desirous, not
merely of translating, in the general sense of the term, but of giving, as
faithfully as possible, a delineation of the peculiar cast of expression
which the inspired writings possess in this venerable text of the oriental
church.
On this account, as I have observed before, the ordinary choice enjoyed
by a translator between the literal and the free method of rendering his
subject could not be exercised; since the translation here, to be of any
specific utility to the biblical student unacquainted with Aramaic, must, of
necessity, be given ad verbum. It should be such a version as that defined
by a great master in the science of interpretation: "An exact image of the
original; in which image nothing should be drawn either greater or less,
better or worse, than the original; but, so composed, that it might be
acknowledged as another original itself. It follows, that a translator
should use those words, and those only, which clearly express all the
meaning of the author, and in the same manner as the author." * And this has
been humbly but strenuously attempted in the present undertaking, both with
regard to the grammatical signification of words, and, as far as possible,
their collocated order. It need not be remarked, that such a plan would not
admit of an artificial elegance of style; after the manner, for example, of
Castellio's Latin Testament. Had the individual now writing been ambitious
of any thing of this kind, he must have sought for some more appropriate
document on which to make the essay; for the task, which it has been his
sacred solace as well as labour to fulfil, prohibited even a paraphrastic
expression; and demanded that verbal faithfulness to the original, that
scrupulous parsimony and careful pondering of words, that tenacitas verborum
cum perspicuitate sententiae, which St. Augustine so commends in the
unpolished Italíc version; † that determination, in short, to translate
literally, not diffusively; to employ such words, and those all in meaning,
number, and collocation, as would best portray a true copy of the original;
and, following the principle laid down by Morus, so to exhibit the author's
thoughts in our own language, as to make it apparent, that, had he himself
used our language, he would have expressed himself just as the translator
has done.‡ But, when we apply such a principle to the rendering of the TRUE
SAYINGS OF GOD, we may well say, with the profoundest awe, " Who is
sufficient for these things ?"
* ERNESTI.
† AUGUSTINUS De Doctrina Christiana, lib. xi.
‡ MORUS, Dissert. De Discrimine Sensus et Significationis in Interpretando.
THOUGH the Second Epistle of Peter, the Second and Third of John, the
Epistle of Jude, and the Book of Revelation are not found in the
New-Testament canon of the Syrian churches, the circumstance in no way
seriously interferes with the plain authenticity of those productions, as
integral parts of the inspired volume. The Peschito translation, in which
they do not occur, was probably effected before the Second of St. Peter had
travelled far beyond the region for which it had been immediately destined;
before the church had pronounced any definite judgment on the limits of the
canon itself; and, possibly, before the Apocalypse of St. John had been
committed to writing, or the copies so multiplied as to be extensively read
out of Asia Minor. I shall not occupy any of the little space which remains
in the present volume by a detail of the formal evidences by which the
authenticity of these particular books is established: they may be found in
the prefaces of our best commentators, or in the more elaborate treatises of
Jones and Lardner.1
In relation to the present bearing of the subject, it is enough to
remark, that the Syrian church itself has never denied the divinity of those
books. They are quoted by its leading divines as holy scripture. Thus the
Apocalypse is cited by Jacob of Edessa, though in a version different from
the Syrian one now extant, and with the origin or fate of which I am not
acquainted; and by Ephrem, in the fourth century; a hundred years earlier,
by Hippolytus, a Bishop of Aden, who formally maintained its authority
against the objections of Caius, and earlier still, in the second century,
Theophilus of Antioch, in his controversy with Hermogenes, appealed to it as
an inspired book.2 All these authors wrote in Syriac; and the references
they make to the Revelation strongly indicate the existence, so far back as
the earliest of them, of a version of the book in that language. In like
manner St. Ephrem quotes the Second of Peter, and the Third of John, and the
whole of the Epistle of Jude. We admit that it cannot be demonstrated that
there was a Syriac version of these books then extant; but as the fact of
such quotations in the works of Syrian writers must be considered a
presumption in the affirmative, so the manner in which they are cited leaves
no doubt as to the supreme estimate of their authority entertained by the
writers themselves.
It is barely possible that the text now translated into English might be
identical with that made by Polycarp, the coadjutor of Philoxenus. (See
Proleg. p. 33.) In this case it is evident that Thomas of Harkleia must have
effected greater changes in the work which he professedly revised, than we
have generally supposed; and, in fact, created a new version, rather than
emended a former one. The greater likelihood, however, is, that the work
before us is later than either that by Polycarp or by Thomas; though he who
performed it undoubtedly laboured with the latter outspread before him; as
the same principle of translation reigns through each, and instances occur
in which the very same phrase is employed by both. But neither the one nor
the other could approach the excellence of the Peschito. Compared with that,
the version of the four epistles and that of the Apocalypse are very
inferior productions. To use the language of Professor Hug, with whom every
man will concur who has read the works in question, " They do not come near
the Peschito either in the mode of rendering an original writing into a
foreign tongue, or in the other ideas of the author. They are forced, and
laboriously adapted to the letter of the text, without regard to purity of
diction, and, in some instances, without a happy notion of the sense of the
original" Yet an important circumstance is certain, they were made directly
from the Greek; as, from a scrupulous resolution to be as literal as
possible, the translator has sometimes appended the terminations of the
cases of Greek nouns to those which had been incorporated into his own
language, which knows nothing of such distinctions, and has supplied the
want of a separate definite article in Syriac by rendering the Greek one by
the demonstrative pronouns, hono, "this," hau, "that," holen, "these," ailen,
"those;" a usage productive, in many passages, of a barbarous and unpleasant
effect. nevertheless, the determined adherence of this translator to the
very letter of his original, serves to give us increased confidence in the
value of the work, as an exact representation of the wording of a class of
manuscripts older, perhaps, than any now in being.
The version of the four catholic epistles was first brought to light in
Europe by Dr. Pococke, who discovered it among the manuscript treasures of
the Bodleian library at Oxford, and published it with the Greek text, and a
Latin version, in a small quarto, in 1630.
It has been reprinted in the Polyglots and subsequent editions of the Syriac
Testament.
1 Also in HUG'S Einleitung ins N. T. th. 2: EICHHORN'S ditto, dritter bd.;
NIETZSCHE, Epistola Petri posterior Auctori suo contra Grotium vindicata
atque asserta. Lips. 1735. For the genuineness of the Apocalypse we have a
good summary of arguments in STORR'S Biblical Theology, book i. sect. 3. 2
EUSEB. Eccles. Hist. iv. 24.
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