05. The Belief of those Christian Bodies which have used the New Covenant Peshito-Syriac Books.

05. The Belief of those Christian Bodies which have used the New Covenant Peshito-Syriac Books. The fact that the New Covenant Peshito Books were never, for many centuries, combined with any Syriac translation of the five omitted books, though the omitted books were also believed to have had a divine origin in some other dialect, is, itself, a proof that the origin of the Peshito text was believed to be so much above any uninspired translation, that it would have been a sin to bind up any uninspired translation with the Peshito. Wichelhaus says, "In all copies of the Peshito version, those [five omitted] books are sought for in vain" (pg. 221). Yet "it is very well known that the Syrians did not reject those epistles" (pg. 63).

There is an account of the use of Syriac books called "The New Covenant" by the converts of Thaddeus, one of the seventy who were sent forth by Christ himself in his lifetime. Matthew says that the fame of Jesus "went throughout all Syria" (Matthew 4:24), and the following are not idle tales, but well authenticated historical facts. Abgar was the king of a small Syrian kingdom called Osrhoene, which, as Gibbon says, "occupied the northern and most fertile part of Mesopotamia, between the Euphrates and the Tigris. Its capital, Edessa, was situated about twenty miles beyond the Euphrates." (Decline, chap. viii.) Eusebius says that he himself, translated into Greek from Syriac, for his history, the account then existing in the public records of that kingdom, of the manner in which the king and many of the citizens became true Christians. Abgar was afflicted with an incurable disease. He heard of the cures effected by Jesus. He sent a messenger to him asking that he would come and heal him. Jesus is said to have replied, that after his ascension to heaven, he would send one of his disciples to heal him, and to teach both him, and those with him, the way of life. Eusebius says that after the ascension of Jesus, the Apostle Thomas, by divine direction, sent thither Thaddeus, one of the seventy. Thaddeus did great miracles. Abgar was healed by him, and many others.

Dr. Cureton found among the Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum a very old one, copied, he said, "certainly not later than the beginning of the fifth century." Its title is, "The Teaching of Thaddeus the Apostle." It relates what Thaddeus did and said, and what results followed his teaching, down to the time of his death. The Syriac original, and a translation by Dr. Cureton, are before me; also the Syriac, and an English translation of another copy published by Dr. George Phillips, President of Queen’s College, Cambridge. Thaddeus, whose first address to the citizens is recorded in this document, spoke in a manner which remarkably corresponds with such a divine mission. In the course of it he said, "Though ye were not near at the time when the Anointed suffered, yet by the sun which was darkened, and ye saw [it], learn and understand how great a convulsion there was at the time of the crucifixion of him whose message has been spread abroad through all the earth, by the miracles which his disciples, my companions, are working in all the earth, and who, though Hebrews, who knew only the tongue of the Hebrews, in which they were born, behold! today are speaking in all tongues; that those who are far off, as well as those who are near, may hear, and may believe, that this is he who confused the languages of the arrogant in this region of the ancients; that it is he who teaches by means of us today, trust in what is true and real, by [us] the lowly and uncultured, who are from Galilee of Palestine. For I also, whom ye see, am from Paneas, from the place where the river Jordan goes forth: and I was chosen, together with my companions, to be a bearer of tidings.....And the seed of his word I sow in the ears of every man; and those who are willing to receive it, theirs will be a good reward of [their] profession: but against those who obey not, I shake off the dust of my feet, as he [Jesus] commanded me. Turn, therefore, my beloved, from evil ways and hateful deeds; and turn to him with a good and honest will, as he has turned to you in the compassion of his rich mercies.....Flee, therefore, from things made and created, as I have said to you - from things which by name only are called gods, but are not gods in their nature; and draw near to him who, in his nature is God eternally and from everlasting.....Because though he clothed himself in this body, he is God with his Father." "Get that new mind which worships the Maker, and not the things made; [the mind] in which is to be formed an image of what is true and real - of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Spirit of holiness, when ye shall trust, and be immersed in the threefold glorious names." (See Cureton’s Syriac copy, pp. 8, 9, 11).

Thaddeus was probably not one of the twelve, though he is called an apostle, but one of the seventy sent forth by Christ to preach, with power to work miracles, in his lifetime. The above extracts are given as a portrait of his ministry and teaching. He is the person to whose superintending care Syrian writers ascribe the formation of the Peshito; and as he worked miracles, whatever he sanctioned as part of God’s teaching, had the same authority as that which the twelve said was from God. The above extracts tend to confirm belief in his fitness to make or obtain for his converts divinely attested copies of the sacred books so soon as they were written. It is vain to expect to trace all the means by which it was effected. It is enough for us to know that those who knew the result attest it to be, that the Peshito "was written by apostolic authority," (Wichelhaus, pg. 153). Thaddeus may have died before many of the books contained in the Peshito were first written. But the Apostle John lived for some time after they were completed, and, whoever may have written some of these books in the Syriac of Edessa, it was possible for them to have been submitted to him for rectification and divine authority. It is stated by an early writer that some books were really submitted to John for this purpose. Photius, who is called by Mr. Jeremiah Jones a "most accurate and judicious critic" (vol. i. 240), has given an extract from a very ancient book which states that the Apostle John, after he had been banished from Ephesus by Domitian, who died, A.D. 96, returned to Ephesus when Nerva succeeded him, "took the several books which contained the history of our Saviour’s sufferings, miracles, and doctrines, and which were NOW TRANSLATED INTO SEVERAL DIFFERENT LANGUAGES, REVIEWED THEM, RECTIFIED THEM, and joined himself to the former three evangelists," i.e., by writing his Gospel in Greek. (Jones on Canon, Vol. iii. 2). A MANUSCRIPT OF THE FOUR GOSPELS IN SYRIAC, BEARING DATE A.D. 78, is mentioned by J.S. Asseman, in his Bibliotheca. The manuscript was preserved at Baghdad on the river Tigris; at the end it had these words under written; "This sacred book was finished on Wedneday, the 18th day of the month Conun, in the year 389," that is of the Greeks, which was A.D. 78, "by the hand of the Apostle Achaeus, a fellow labourer of Mar Maris, and a disciple of the Apostle Mar Thaddeus, whom we intreat to pray for us." This prayer implies that the statement was written after the time of Achaeus (who is probably the person called also Aggaeus), and Dr. Glocester Ridley says that Achaeus died A.D. 48. For this and other reasons J.D. Michaelis says that the statement "is of no authority." (Marsh’s Michaelis, 1823, vol. ii., pg. 31). THE GREAT NUMBER OF CONVERTS made by Thaddeus, needed to be supplied immediately with WRITTEN DIVINE RECORDS IN SYRIAC, to teach them what to believe and what to do. Greek books would not have been suitable, for their language was Syriac. The ancient Syriac copy of "The Teaching of Thaddeus," from which the above extracts are taken, states that not only King Abgar, and many of the people of that city, were converted, but many also throughout "all Mesopotamia, and the regions round about it." It says that Thaddeus "received all those who trusted in the Anointed, and immersed them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Spirit of Holiness"; that the king gave money with which a house of worship was built; that in it they "offered praises all the days of their lives;" that in the worship conducted there, the teachers "read in the Old Covenant and in the New, and in the Prophets, and in the Acts of the Apostles every day." By the New Covenant seems to be meant the Gospels; for the New Covenant is distinguished from the Acts of the Apostles, and a little afterwards it is said that many people assembled from day to day, and came to the prayers of the service, and the [reading of the] Old Covenant and of the New in four parts. (See Syriac, pp. 13, 15). The Syriac of this narrative is like that of the Peshito itself; a fact which corroborates the statement that the Peshito was made by the care of Thaddeus.

SOME DOUBT, however, attaches to some of the above statements, because, "The Teaching of Thaddeus" has at the end, received forged additions. Dr. Glocester Ridley says that Achaeus (sometimes called Aggaeus), a disciple of Thaddeus, died A.D. 48. Serapion was bishop of Antioch about A.D. 192-214; Zephyrinus was bishop of Rome 202-217. Yet in this record it is said that when Aggaeus died, "Palut received the hand of priesthood from Serapion, bishop of Antioch, which hand Serapion received from Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome, from the succession of the hand of priesthood of Simon Cephas." So that though the above extracts do not seem to be corrupted, some of them may be so.

BARDESANES was a Syrian writer of note in cent. II. Cave says that he flourished about A.D. 172. Dr. Nathaniel Lardner, in his Credibility, 1735, vol. ii., pg. 673, says, "Eusebius speaks favourably of him, though most later writers call him a heresiarch." Eusebius says that he was "a most eloquent writer in the Syriac language"; and that he wrote several dialogues in his own language "against Marcion and other authors of different opinions." (See Eusebius’ Hist., Cent., iv., ch. 30). Also that he was at first a follower of Valentinus, and that though he gave up some of his errors, he did not get rid of all the filth of his former heresy. Epiphanius says that he was a native of Edessa and very intimate with the king then reigning there, who was also called Abgar, and a professed Christian; that Bardesanes "went into several great errors but continued to use the Law and the Prophets, both the Old and THE NEW COVENANT, joining with them some apocryphal books." (Lardner ii. 677-678). This is evidence that at that time a Syriac "New Covenant" existed. Canon Westcott says also of the controversial writings of Bardesanes that they "NECESSARILY IMPLY the existence of a Syriac Version of the Bible." (On the Canon, pg. 237).

HEGESIPPUS lived in the latter part of the second century. Eusebius, bk. iv., ch. 22, says, "He sets forth some things from the Gospel according to the Hebrews, and FROM THE SYRIAC, and from the Hebrew dialect as his own, showing that he was one of the Hebrews who had trusted. Dr. Westcott (on Canon, pg. 238) says, "This testimony is valuable, as coming from the only early Greek writer likely to have been familiar with Syriac literature." The bare reference of Hegesippus to "the Syriac," leaves it uncertain to what part of the Scriptures in Syriac he referred; but it shows that he made use of some Syriac copy, and the Peshito is the only one which can be supposed to be intended.

APHRAATES, a Persian sage, wrote twenty-two Syriac homilies, A.D. 337-345. The citations from the gospels met with in these homilies, are said by Professor Wright to be very loose; to have some occasional resemblance to Cureton’s Syriac, but to be on the whole, much nearer to the text of the Peshito. (Scrivener’s Int. pg. 323, note.)

EPHRAEM, of Edessa, was a very eminent Syrian writer. He died A.D. 373. J.S. Asseman devotes 140 folio pages to extracts from his writings, and to comments on them. They are in the same Syriac dialect in which the Peshito is written. Dr. Westcott (on Canon, pg. 238) says, "Ephrem treats the version in such a manner as to prove that it was already old in the fourth century." One of Ephrem’s similes will show the beauty of his style, and though it does not prove that he believed the New Covenant Peshito to have divine authority, yet his constant use of it seems to imply that he was referring to it when he spoke of the New Covenant as a harp, the notes of which have been played by the finger of God. He said, "Praise be to the Lord of all, who framed and fitted for himself two harps, those of the Prophets and of the Apostles; but it is the same finger which has played upon the two, the different notes of the two covenants." (Asseman’s Bib. Or., vol. i., pg. 103). IN THE FIFTH CENTURY, those who used the Peshito began to be divided into different sects. But, as Dr. Westcott observes, the Peshito has continued to be "universally received" and used by these different sects down to the present time. He says, "All the Syrian Christians, whether belonging to the Nestorian, Jacobite, or Roman communion, conspire to hold the Peshito AUTHORITATIVE, and to use it in their public services.....The Peshito became in the East the fixed and unalterable RULE OF SCRIPTURE." (On the Canon, pg. 239). THE THREE CHIEF SECTS which, to this day, continue to use the New Covenant Peshito-Syriac books, are the Nestorians, Jacobites, and Maronites. Their names are derived from Nestorius, Jacob Baradaeus, and Maron.

NESTORIUS, or NESTORE, became Patriarch of Constantinople, A.D. 430. An absurd custom had arisen of calling Mary who was the mother of Jesus, "The Mother of God." Nestore objected to it, and said, as Mosheim relates, that she "was rather to be called the mother of Christ; since the Deity can neither be born nor die; and only the Son of Man could derive his birth from an earthly parent." (Cent. v.) The Emperor Theodosius called a council of bishops which met at Ephesus, A.D. 431. This council, one of "lawless violence," defended the false title given to Mary. Nestore was condemned. He resigned his bishopric, and was afterwards banished. Many agreed with him, and held that his sentiments had been taught by Scripture from the beginning. They were called Nestorians, not because they derived their sentiments from him, but because he was one of the chief defenders of those sentiments. Amrus, a Nestorian, about A.D. 1340, said, that "Nestore, whose name was imposed on them, was a Greek, but they were Syrians; they had never seen him, nor had he ever trod their lands" (Patriarchs, by Aloys Asseman, pg. 206). Another council of bishops (for prelates had then assumed to themselves the right to rule the churches, and pretended that their decisions were laws given by the will of God,) met at Chalcedon in Asia Minor, not far from Constantinople, about A.D. 451. This Council, by its decrees, said that some had dared to corrupt the mystery of the gospel, and were denying the application of the word "THEOTOKOS - mother of God, to the Virgin;" that this Council held that the Son, is "true God and true man.....BEGOTTEN by the Father before the ages as to his DEITY.....but of Mary, virgin and DEIPARA - Mother of God, as to his HUMANITY; one and the same Jesus Christ, Son of God, Lord and only begotten, made manifest in two natures," which two natures "concur in ONE PERSON," who is "one and the same only begotten Son, the God-Word" (Magdeburg Centuriators, cent. v., Colossians 531.) It is self-evident that things that differ so much as Godhead does from manhood, are not "one and the same." The first evident error in the above statement is that the Divine Word is a BEGOTTEN Deity. The next is that the Deity of this begotten God, though declared to be quite distinct in nature from the humanity begotten of the Virgin, is nevertheless so "one" with it, that because Mary was mother of the manhood, she therefore was MOTHER OF THE GODHEAD ALSO. A greater absurdity is impossible. Yet this is still called, not only by Roman Catholics, but by a member of the Church of England, the orthodox faith of the true church. It was this absurdity which Nestore denied. For doing so, he is still called by many a heretic. Gibbon remarks, that the doctrine of the Council of Chalcedon, namely, that in Christ there is but "one person in two natures," was received by Europe during ten centuries of servitude to the Vatican, and was then "admitted without dispute into the creed of the Reformers." (Decline, ch. xlvii.) Is it difficult to form a correct opinion on this point? The statement that the Deity and manhood of Christ formed but "one person" seems to mean that they had only one capability of personal action. In Christ "dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily;" Colossians 2:9. Did this indwelling make the Godhead and the manhood to be so one, that when the manhood was crucified the Godhead was crucified? God dwells, in an inferior degree, in his saints; does this make them to be so one in person with God that when they pray and sing, God prays and sings? And yet for denying that God was born of Mary, Nestorians are counted heretics.

Nestorians were also charged with making the SONSHIP OF CHRIST DOUBLE. (See Magdeburg Centuriators, cent. v., Colossians 334, F.) Almost all the ancient creeds do this, by teaching that even the Deity of Christ was begotten, as well as his humanity. Nestore’s opponents held this creed. But they seemed to have imagined that by calling the Godhead and the manhood "one person," they made the divine Sonship, in respect of which the Creed of Chalcedon says he was "begotten before the ages," to be one and the same with the sonship of his humanity. The charge against the Nestorians was that by denying Christ to be "one person," they left the double sonship unresolved into oneness. Nestore and his opponents both held that the Divine Word was a begotten Deity; but his opponents added absurdity to error when they imagined that the words "one person" converted two sonships into one. The word of God says nothing of a begotten God. "I am," which denotes underived existence, was used by Christ of his Godhead, as well as by God of himself when he spoke to Moses. (Exodus 3:14; John 8:58.) Oneness with the Father is the oneness of self-existence. God tells us that Christ is his Son because begotten by him of Mary, Luke 1:35.

ANOTHER CHARGE brought against Nestore was that he made FOUR PERSONS in the Godhead. (Magdeburg Centuriators, cent. v., Colossians 335 F., 338 F.) As if it were impossible to believe that the Deity of Christ differs from his manhood, without converting his manhood into a second Deity. Such absurdities seem to be intended to show that if men assume a lordship which God forbids, he makes their wisdom folly.

These facts are proof that the Nestorians, who suffered the loss of all things, and preferred to be under the ban of perpetual excommunication, rather than admit the untruth that Mary was the mother of God, gave far better proof of being trustworthy witnesses as to the origin of their Scriptures, than those of the Greek and Roman bodies who asserted that untruth.

THESE CHARGES HAVE BEEN MENTIONED because they help to account for the unwillingness, so strong in some quarters, to receive THE TESTIMONY OF THE NESTORIANS respecting their Peshito Scriptures. For, strange as it may seem, even Dr. Liddon, a Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, in his Bampton Lectures on the Divinity of Christ, 9th ed., 1882, defends the false title "mother of God," (pg. 261.) He pleads that it has been used by those whom he calls "the whole church, since the Council of Ephesus," and justifies them in "attributing to God birth of a human mother," (pg. 261, note.) He calls the rejection of that false title by Nestore, a "vital heresy," (pg. 123.)

PENAL LAWS drove most of the Nestorians out of the Roman empire (Gibbon, chap. xlvii.) But ELSEWHERE THEY INCREASED EXCEEDINGLY. A large majority of the people of Persia became Nestorians. Cosmas, who is called the Indian navigator, and was a Nestorian, said of them, in the sixth century, that Christianity was successfully preached by them to the Bactrians, Huns, Persians, Indians, Medes, and Elamites; and that the number of churches from the Gulf of Persia to the Caspian sea, was almost infinite. Gibbon says that, in a subsequent age their missionaries pursued without fear the footsteps of the roving Tartar; that some of them entered China, and that under the Mohammedan Caliphs, "their numbers, with those of the Jacobites, were computed TO SURPASS THE GREEK AND ROMAN COMMUNIONS." (Gibbon, ch. xlvii. Nestorians.) All these churches used the Peshito. THE BEST CHARACTERISTICS of the Nestorians are their LOVE AND USE OF THE PESHITO, and THEIR GREAT CARE TO KEEP IT PURE. From the first they shared the corruptions of Christianity which prevailed in the fifth century; and Wichelhaus says, in reference to about the year 600, "They were often contentious, ambitious, covetous; doctrines were adulterated," a hierarchy had been founded and was promoted; they corrupted and depraved the doctrines and precepts which they had received pure from the Apostles, not less than the Roman Catholics did. "This thing only is to be praised in them, that they always used the Bible, and greatly valued learning," (pg. 130.) He says that from the eighth century, slaughter and desolation overwhelmed both the Nestorians and the Jacobites; that some of the Nestorians fled for refuge to the mountains of Coordistan, and some of the Jacobites, partly to the mountain regions of Mesopotamia, and partly to the solitudes of Lebanon; (pp. 205-206). J. Aloys Asseman (a nephew of J.S. Asseman, who wrote the Bibliotheca) wrote a history of the Nestorian Patriarchs, published A.D. 1775, and showed a constant succession of them down to that date. He gives an account also of some of their chief writers. One of these, Jesudadus, mentions the belief of the Syrians as to the origin of the Peshito.

JESUDADUS, who is sometimes called SOADEDUS, lived during the Patriarchate of Theodosius, A.D. 852-858. He said of the Syriac version, "The translation of the sacred books into the Syriac language was in this order; the Pentateuch, and Joshua the son of Nun, and Judges, and Ruth, and Samuel, and David, and Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs, and Job, were translated in the time of Solomon, at the request of Hiram, king of Tyre, his friend. But the rest of the books of the Old and those of the New Covenant, in the time of Abgar, king of Edessa, by the care and solicitude of Thaddaeus and other apostles." (J.A. Asseman’s Patriarchs, pg. 102, note 1.)

Thaddaeus, who worked miracles, could give the same authority to what he approved, as the twelve apostles did. The belief of the Syrians, therefore, about 800 years from the time of the Apostles was that the New Covenant Peshito was made under such apostolic care that it had the same authority as the gospels of Luke and Mark had from being made under the care of Paul and Peter.

EBEDJESUS, who became Metropolitan of Soba, that is, of Nisibis, A.D. 1290, was a Nestorian of great eminence. His works were very numerous. The list which he gave of the sacred books of the New Testament was that of the Peshito, not of the Greek. He states that the Gospel of Matthew was "written in Palestine in Hebrew," that is, in Syriac, then called Hebrew; and that the reason why the epistles of James, 1st Peter, and 1st John, were called catholic, was because "they had in them words written by the apostles in every copy and IN EVERY LANGUAGE." The Syriac books of which he was speaking were those contained in the New Covenant Peshito. His statements imply the general belief of Syrians that those four books, at the least, were written in Syriac, and that the Peshito contained true copies of them. (See Westcott on Canon, pg. 540, and Dr. Badger’s Nestorians, 1852, vol. ii., pp. 361-363.)

EBEDJESUS gives the following account of the origin of the Nestorians, the Jacobites, and the Melchites, in his work called "The Jewel," which is translated by Dr. Badger, vol. ii., pg. 380. Ebedjesus says that Cyril maintained that we ought to call the Virgin, "Mother of God," and wrote twelve sentences, excommunicating all who should draw any distinction between the Godhead and humanity of Christ after their union. Nestorius showed that these sentences were erroneous; that the appellation "Mother of God," is unscriptural. He called her "Mother of the Anointed," the Anointed being the word used by prophets and apostles. From this difference of creed came slaughter, exile, imprisonment, and great persecution. The Council of Chalcedon decided that there are TWO NATURES in Christ, and TWO WILLS, and anathematised all who should deny the two natures; but decided that there is but ONE PERSON. The party of Cyril objected to "two natures;" that of Nestorius to "one person." An imperial edict degraded from their dignity all who did not agree with the decision, that there are two natures and one person. Some submitted. Others did not. Hence arose three sects. Those who held ONE NATURE AND ONE PERSON IN CHRIST. This sect included the Copts, Egyptians, and Abyssinians. This is called the Jacobite sect, from a Syrian teacher called Jacob. The second sect held that there are TWO NATURES AND ONE PERSON in Christ. These are called Melchites - the king’s party, because this creed was imposed forcibly by the king. It is received by the Romans called Franks, by those of Constantinople who are Greeks, and by all the people of the West, such as Russians, Circassians, Georgians and their neighbours. The Jacobites and Melchites accept the appellation "mother of God." The Jacobites have added the declaration that "God was crucified for us." The third creed is that of the Nestorians, that there are TWO NATURES AND TWO PERSONS in Christ. The Easterns have never changed their faith, but have kept it as they received it from the apostles, and therefore are unjustly called Nestorians, because he was not their patriarch, nor was his their language. Nestorius followed THEM, not they HIM, and more especially, as to the appellation "Mother of the Anointed." Such is the account given by Ebedjesus of the three sects. It shows how well informed he was, and how important his testimony is as to the books of Scripture. THE CHRISTIANS OF ST. THOMAS, in India, whose profession of Christianity dates from the time of the apostles, maintain that Syriac was the original language of Scripture. Dr. Westcott says, "The Syriac Christians of Malabar even now claim for the Peshito the right to be considered as an Eastern original of the New Testament." (On the Canon, pg. 233.) "How shall we know," said one of them, speaking to Dr. Claudius Buchanan about the Greek Testament, "that your standard copy of the Bible is a TRUE TRANSLATION? We cannot depart from our own Bible. It is THE TRUE BOOK OF GOD, without corruption; it is that book which was first used by the Christians of Antioch. What TRANSLATIONS you have got in the West, we know not; but the true Bible of Antioch we have had in the mountains of Malabar for fourteen hundred years, or longer." Another of these professed Christians said, "If the parables and discourses of our Lord were in Syriac, and the people in Jerusalem commonly used it, is it not marvellous that his disciples did not record his parables in the Syrian language, and that they should have recourse to the Greek? Surely there must have been A SYRIAC ORIGINAL. The poor people in Jerusalem could not read Greek. Had THEY no record in their hands of Christ’s parables which they had heard, and of his sublime discourses recorded by John after his ascension? You admit that Matthew was written originally in Syriac; you may as well admit John. Or was one Gospel enough for the inhabitants of Jerusalem?" (Dr. Etheridge’s Syriac Christians, pp. 166-167.) THE NESTORIANS NEVER TREATED THE GREEK TEXT AS OF HIGHER AUTHORITY than that of the New Covenant Peshito. Wichelhaus says (pg. 187,) that "the Nestorians had no social union with Western Christians; and that they held the text of the Greek New Testament in almost no esteem, and deemed the ancient Peshito to be in all things authentic." At pg. 153 he says, "In the history of the Nestorians, it was never found, so far as I know, that learned men took the trouble to compare the Syriac text of the New Testament with the Greek, and to conform it to that." (Also pg. 266.) THE TERMS APPLIED TO THE PESHITO prove the general belief of its divine origin. Wichelhaus says, (pg. 153), "It was extolled with the greatest praises; it was esteemed to be exactly what was written in the first times BY APOSTOLIC AUTHORITY; it was called, not only ancient, but SACRED AND BLESSED." THE EXTREME CARE taken to preserve its text in purity implies that every part of it was believed to be from God. The care taken was like that which the Jews took of their inspired Hebrew text. Wichelhaus says, "It is a proof of the extreme accuracy of the Syrians in treating the sacred text, that, like the Jews, they have their Masora," a collection of critical comments on correct readings; "not only do they divide the text into chapters and lections, but they also number the comma-divisions of each book." (pg. 156.) Monasteries abounded in the East from the fourth century. When the city of Edessa was taken by the Saracens, 300 monasteries were found in it, (pg. 126.) The monks of that period devoted their time chiefly to copying the scriptures, and making known the gospel. Wichelhaus attributes the great accuracy of the copies of the Peshito, and especially of the Nestorian copies, to the following causes. 1st. - Many copies were written in monasteries, by skilled men, from approved examples, and with the utmost care and attention. 2ndly. - Those copies were read and examined many times by ministers and monks. 3rdly. - In the time of Ephraem, cent. iv., deep interest was taken in the letter of Scripture, and many Syrians are mentioned who had committed almost the whole New Testament to memory. 4thly. - In schools, in church-assemblies, and in monasteries, there was such constant communication between the teachers and the taught, that if any differences crept into the text, they could scarcely escape notice, nor become fixed by custom. 5thly. - A large part of the Christians of that region had been Jews, they were compelled to discuss points with Jews, they had Jewish schools near them, and were thus accustomed to consider the words of sacred scripture, to be themselves sacred and inviolable, amd almost to number the very letters." (pg. 151.) 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.)

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."

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 20:28, 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 2:9, 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 2:9.) 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 2:9, 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. 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.)

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.

FAUST NAIRON, a Maronite, is often referred to by J.S. Asseman as a writer of eminence. He was one of the two editors of the edition of the Peshito Syriac Version, printed by the side of an Arabic Version of the New Testament, in 1703, by command of the Roman Congregation DE PROPAGANDA FIDE, for the use of the Maronites. He also wrote the preface. In this he said, (pg. 2) "The Syriac text EXCELS IN ANTIQUITY ALL OTHER TEXTS. By it very many places which in these are obscure, may be made plain." He proceeds to endeavour to prove that the Syriac text is more ancient than the Greek text of the Gospels. He mentions the common opinion that the Syriac Gospels were translated from the Greek, and says that there are better reasons for concluding that the Greek Gospels were translated from the Syriac. The weak part of his argument is, that he considers it certain that the sacred writers could not have given details of words and events so numerous and so varied as to time and place, unless they had made a WRITTEN RECORD of them, when they heard, saw, or were first informed of them. He says, that if they did make such a record, it must have been in their own language, Syriac. To this it may be replied, that we have very little evidence that any of them did make such records in the Saviour’s life-time; and that they had no need of them, because the Holy Spirit brought all things to their remembrance. (John 14:26.) But the events which occurred were so extraordinary, and Christ so often called attention to his teaching, by saying, "He that has ears to hear, let him hear," that those who could write, would of necessity think it worth while to keep a written record of what they heard and saw, as Josephus did of the events of the Jewish war. Evidence that this was done by some persons appears from what Luke says of the many who had "set forth in order" the events of the gospel history (Luke 1:1); and when he says of himself, that he had "closely followed up with exactness FROM THE FIRST what had been DELIVERED by those who, from the beginning, were eye-witnesses;" he seems clearly to intimate that what he wrote was from written records made by himself FROM THE FIRST of what these eye-witnesses had told him; so that Faust Nairon has, in these words of Luke, some support for his remark, that the sacred writers in order to construct with accuracy, as witnesses, what they knew of the "parables, miracles, and sayings of Christ," may have done so, unless the Holy Spirit’s aid dispensed with ordinary means, from records made in the life-time of Christ; and that as they then knew no language but their own native Syriac tongue, these records must have been made in Syriac. (Introduction, pp. 2, 3, 4.) Of MATTHEW, Faust Nairon says, and correctly, that "all the ancients bear witness that he wrote his Gospel in Syriac." (pp. 3, 4.) He states also that Theophilact says the apostle John translated it into Greek. He notices the singular fact that Matthew does not record the ascension of Christ to heaven, and he draws from this the conclusion that the gospel was completed before that event took place. (pg. 6.) Of JOHN’S GOSPEL, Faust Nairon says that Alexander, (who was bishop of Rome about A.D. 109 to 119), stated that John opposed and confuted the error of Cerinthus, who in Jerusalem, Caesarea, and Antioch, denied the Deity of Christ. Faust Nairon says, that for this purpose John’s Gospel must have been first written in Syriac. He says that Cerinthus afterwards went into Asia Minor. Irenaeus, who died about A.D. 200, says that John "published a Gospel while he dwelt at Ephesus, in Asia." (Lardner’s Credibility, bk. i. ch. xvii.) Faust Nairon suggests that this may mean that John, to meet the error of Cerinthus there, re-issued his Gospel, and in Greek. He says that John, like Matthew, does not mention the ascension, and that this implies that his Gospel was written before it took place. He says also, that the Syriac modes of speech in John’s Greek Gospel, imply that it was first written in Syriac. (pg. 4.) Of MARK, Faust Nairon says that he preached the gospel in many regions, and that some writers say that he wrote his Gospel in THREE LANGUAGES; Greek, Latin,and Syriac. (pg. 5.) Of THE GOSPEL OF LUKE, Faust Nairon says, that from the writings of Origen, Ambrose, Theophilact, and Epiphanius, it appears that Luke was a Syrian from Antioch, and sent his Gospel first to his own countrymen in Antioch, to oppose some false teachers there; that for this purpose it needed to be written in Syriac, as well as in Greek; because, though Greek had been introduced by the Greek rulers of Antioch, it was not the common language of the citizens. He says also, that Greek was not the native language of Luke himself, but acquired by him afterwards; that this appears from the statement of Jerome, that he was "a physician of Antioch, and not ignorant of Greek." Faust Nairon says, that the many Syriac idioms in Luke’s Gospel shows that he was a Syrian. OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, Faust Nairon says that Jerome states the book was written in Greek, but that Metaphrastes says, Luke also wrote it in the language of his own country, which was Syriac. OF 1 JOHN, he says, that it was sent to Hebrew Christians who lived beyond the Euphrates under the rule of the Parthians, that it was anciently called, The Epistle to the Parthians, and must have been written in Syriac, the native tongue of the Hebrews there. (pg. 8.) OF HEBREWS, JAMES, and 1 PETER, Faust Nairon makes no special mention; but his remark, that all the epistles must "of necessity have been written in the language of those to whom they were sent, or they could not have been understood by them," applies specially to these epistles; for their contents prove that they were written to Hebrew Christians, and their native language, as Faust Nairon says, was Syriac. (pg. 9.) OF THE EPISTLES OF PAUL, he says, that to them, as well as to all the epistles, the rule must be applied, that they must have been written in the language of those to whom they were sent. We have Paul’s letters in Greek, and we have them also in Syriac, with abundant evidence that they were written in Syriac in the time of the apostles. From what Peter says of Paul’s Epistles, it seems probable that they were circulated among Hebrew Christians in Syriac, very soon after they were written. Syriac was the only language, as we have found, which was GENERALLY, and well understood by all the Hebrews. Yet Peter, writing to the dispersed Hebrew Christians of Asia Minor, speaks of "ALL" Paul’s Epistles, as if well known among them, and not only those which Paul had written "to them." (2 Peter 3:15-16.) This reference to "ALL his Epistles," seems to imply that those which he had written in Greek were well known to Hebrews who knew little of any language but Syriac; and tends, by its agreement with the Syrian testimony, to show that ALL THE LETTERS OF PAUL IN THE PESHITO, were written in Syriac in the time of the Apostles.

Faust Nairon says in proof that THE PESHITO, AS A WHOLE, IS NOT A MERE TRANSLATION OF THE GREEK COPIES, that the NUMBER of books in it is different from that of the Greek text, which has 2 Peter 2:1-22 nd and 3rd John, Jude and Revelation. That the ORDER of books is also different from their order in most Greek copies; for James, 1st Peter, and 1st John, follow the Acts; and that the Greek text has passages which the Peshito has not.

He says that Luke 22:17-18, is not in most copies of the Peshito. "And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves; for I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come." Bishop Walton says, "These verses are not found in the Vienna manuscript, nor in the one which we have mostly used." They are placed in brackets by Dr. Lee, 1816, and in the Ooroomiah edition, to show, apparently, that they were not in the copies followed. The account of the adulteress, John 8:1-11, which is in many Greek copies, is absent from most of those of the Peshito. Bishop Walton printed it in Syriac from a copy in the library of Archbishop Usher, but said that it was absent from all preceding printed editions. In Dr. Lee’s edition, and that of Ooroomiah, lines are placed across the page at the beginning and end of the passage, with evident intention to show its absence from the copies followed.

Acts 28:29 : "And when he had said these words, the Jews departed, and had great reasoning among themselves," is not in the Peshito. Nor is 1 John 5:7 : "There are three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one." Faust Nairon remarks that this verse is quoted by Cyprian, (bishop of Carthage, 247-258), when writing on the unity of the Church, and that this was before Arius was born. (See the edition of Cyprian’s work by Le Preuse, 1593, pg. 297.) Cyprian says, "Respecting the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, it is written, ’And these three are one.’" Faust Nairon suggests that this verse was probably added to the epistle when published in Greek, with view to meet more fully the denial of the Deity of Christ by Cerinthus; and that its appearance in the Greek text, though absent from the Syriac, tends to show that the epistle "was first written by John in Syriac." (Nairon, pg. 8.)

FAUST NAIRON’S belief that A RECORD WAS MADE IN SYRIAC by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, of events in the Saviour’s history, DURING HIS LIFE-TIME, receives some support from the contents of the first three Gospels. It has been observed, that there are passages in some of the Greek copies of these three Gospels, which are in EXACTLY THE SAME WORDS as passages in others. Bishop Herbert Marsh, in his translation of the Introduction of J.D. Michaelis, vol. iii. pp. 160-409, prints an elaborate treatise on the origin of the first three Gospels, and gives in Greek many instances of these identical Greek passages. He says that it is "wholly impossible" that these three historians, if they had no connexion with each other, should have written IN GREEK, passages so identical, (pg. 168); and that "we are reduced to this dilemma, ’Either the succeeding Evangelists copied from the preceding, or that all the three drew from a common source." (pg. 170.) After examining various attempts made by others to account for this identity of Greek words, he comes to the conclusion that internal proofs show that these three writers did not copy words one from another. (pp. 320-330.) At pg. 361, he says that the verbal agreements and disagreements of these three Gospels, can be solved in a manner which is perfectly consistent with the inspiration of the Greek Gospels, by admitting that "all three writers used copies of A COMMON HEBREW," that is, A SYRIAC "DOCUMENT."

STEPHEN EVOD ASSEMAN, Archbishop of Apamea, a third Syrian of the name of Asseman, in answer to an inquiry made by Dr. Glocester Ridley, who published a work on the Peshito in 1761, said, - "The first [Syriac] version of the New Testament is called the Peshito; the Syrians believe that its translation of the Gospels was made either by the Apostles themselves, or at least by the Apostle Thaddaeus; that the Acts and Epistles were made by Apostolic men, and that Ephraem, and other fathers, who flourished in the third and fourth centuries, used that version." (Wichelhaus, pg. 68.) Dr. N. Lardner defines the meaning of "apostolical men," to be "disciples of the Apostles, intimately acquainted with them," (Credibility, book i., chap. xxii., pg. 536); men like "Mark and Luke, companions of the Apostles." (chap. xxvii. pg. 576.) Such men could obtain from the apostles their correction of and authority for what they wrote.

TRANSLATIONS MADE FROM THE PESHITO FOR CHRISTIAN BODIES are themselves testimonies that its authority was deemed as great as, or greater than that of the Greek text. Faust Nairon, in the Introduction already named, refers, as Bishop Walton has done also, to a Syrian Commentator on Psalm xix., who asserts, in reference to the "New Covenant," that "though the Armenians translated from the Greek, they afterwards compared their copy with the Syriac, and made it agree with the Syriac in particular places." (pg. 9.) An Arabic version in part, and a Persian version, were made from the Peshito. (Wichelhaus, pg. 241, also pg. 152.) In the above testimonies, NO ELEMENT IS WANTING OF PROOF HELD TO BE DECISIVE, that a book is what it is said to be. They give, by their universal and continuous harmony, from very early to the present time, proof that the Peshito had its origin in the time of the Apostles, and was made under their care. They fully satisfy the rule of Bishop Huet. They equally satisfy the rule laid down by Dr. Westcott in his book on the Canon. They are testimonies respecting the belief of large Christian bodies; a belief attested by the treatment of the book as "sacred," and as a Divine Rule of faith and practice. The Peshito is a witness, such as the utmost efforts have failed to find in Greek copies of early date. Vain, as yet, has been every attempt, by means of Greek copies, to give a text which is proved to be "brought back to the condition in which it stood in the sacred autographs." (Scrivener, Int. pp. 6, 520.) But the Peshito, in the opinion of Wichelhaus, who has studied it and its history with the greatest care, possesses a Syriac text so ancient and so well preserved, that even if it were due only to a human translator, it would be proved to represent, with a few exceptions, a Greek text "most like to the autographs of the apostles." (Wichelhaus, pg. 264.) Canon Cook also, the Editor of the Speaker’s Commentary, says that "the Syriac Peshito, is the version which probably COMES NEAREST TO THE AUTOGRAPHS of the Evangelists, especially in Matthew;" and that to it, and some other authorities, "a higher value is to be assigned in some cases," than to any Greek copies, because this version is "MORE ANCIENT, and BETTER ATTESTED than any manuscripts." (First Three Gospels, pg. 143.)