148 REV. p. p. FLOCIRNOY, D.D., ON BEARING OF ARCH^OLOG [CAL 



readings of the Sinaitic Palimpsest, and he is confirmed in his 

 opinion that it is the oldest of the Syriac versions. 



Mrs. Lewis, in an article in The Eoypositor lor July, 1911, 

 says — 



" Scholars are generally agreed, I believe, in thinking that the 

 Curetonian text is a revision of the Sinai one, and the Peshitta a 

 further revision, made probably by Bishop Rabbula, in the 

 beginning of the fifth century " and that " it was done to bring the 

 Old Syriac into harmony with the Greek MSS." 



She goes on to say that — 



" Dr. Friederich Blass and Dr. Adalbert Merx, amongst those who 

 have left us, and amongst the living, Drs. Hjelt and Heer, all of 

 whom have studied it closely, think that the Diatessaron came 

 between the Sinai MS. and the Cureton MS., and that, therefore, 

 the Old Syriac represents the earliest translation of the Gospels into 

 any language.""^ 



As to the character of the text of the Sinaitic Palimpsest, 

 Professor Rend el Harris remarks, in his brilliant article in The 

 Contemporary for November, 1894, that it is — 



" A text that often agrees with the most ancient in Greek 

 MSS., a text which the most advanced critic will at once 

 acknowledge to be, after allowance is made for a few serious 

 blemishes [these are in the first chapter of Matthew], superior in 

 quality to all extant copies, with a very few exceptions." 



This shows that the theory of a gradual evolution of the 

 Gospels is untenable. We should remember, too, that the 

 Palimpsest is a copy of a translation from the Greek, and that 

 the Greek original w^as earlier than any translation of it could 

 be. Yet Professor Harris concludes that this Syriac version 

 " must have been made far back in the second century." The 

 Greek must have been farther back still. 



Such a translation for the use of the Syriac-speaking Church 

 surely would not have been made, unless these Pour Gospels 

 had been fully accepted as the records of our Saviour's life 

 and teachinus, and it is unreasonable to suppose that they 

 would have been thus accepted by the Church without Apostolic 

 approval. 



" Let us take for granted, provisionally, that the Sinai form of the Old 

 Syriac is anterior to the Diatessaron, and is, therefore, the oldest of the 

 versions. We then understand why Mark xvi, 9-20, is absent from it, 

 though present in the Arabic translation of the Diatessaron, and in the 

 Cureton MS."— Mrs, Lewis in The Expositor, July, 1911. 



