The Syriac Forms of New Testament Proper Names

TH E SYRI AC FORM S N EW TESTAM EN T PROPER BY BU K F. C . R ITT FE LLOW O F THE ACADE M Y Read Janum 24 191 2 y , TH E I ch osen I rath er subj ect have for this Paper sounds, fear, dry and technical , so that it may not be out of place to begin by c laiming that it presents one element of general interest . The ff - Pilgrim from Palestine, with his sta and his scallop shell and his c tales of the Holy Land, is one of the most pi turesque figures of the middle ages : it will be my task this afternoon to introduce you c to the earliest of that band, the earliest that has left any re ord . His tale is told in a dead language, and perhaps not all his archaeology c c is orrect, but he deserves to be heard with the respe t due to a pioneer. a a collection The New Test ment is of Greek writings , and it is not till D c the last quarter of the second century A . that there is any eviden e “ o f ff But o n e orts to translate it into other tongues . in the peri d betwee 1 70 200 and the Gospels, Acts, and Pauline Epistles were translated into Latin in the West, at Rome or Carthage, and into Syriac in the s . o f East, at Edes a in the Euphrates Valley The translation the New ffi all Testament into Latin presented no special di culty, and least of in the proper names . There is, of course, a right way and a wrong, ’ as those know who have read Professor Hous man s amusing article in the last number of the Journal of Philology on Greek Nouns in ‘ But ft Latin Poetry . the points raised are, a er all , of subsidiary interest . The Latin translator had merely to give the Latin letter which custom and authority prescribed as equivalent to the Greek letter. He had no need to be wise above that which had been written : it is a pretty question whether we ought to write Plz arao 1 t I t is worth while recording th e fact that th e old est Christian M SS . s uppor ’ H s a k h as Herode n and th e o e o ou m n s ene a conc u on e . Pr f ss r g r l l si s , g \Vii rz burg Palimpsest in Jeremiah xiii h as E ufraten PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY Farao or , but all that either form tells us is that the title of the king o f ( Egypt is spelt hapoco in Greek . ff The translator from Greek into Syriac is in a very di erent case . c o Syriac, the former omm n speech of the Euphrates Valley, is a c fi c w Semiti language, the rst ousin of Hebrew . Like Hebre , many do not of the vowels appear in writing, and those that are written cc ul are given in a notation that, a ording to our ideas, is sing arly c . c al imperfe t On the other hand, many distinctions are made, espe i ly c in the sibilants, whi h disappear in the Greek , and (as in Hebrew) there are four true guttural sounds which are not represented in Greek at all . It is easy enough to transliterate true Greek Proper Names c m into Syriac . They look indeed rather lu sy, and without the 1 insertion of vowel signs the transliterations are often ambiguous . ffi c t The real di ulty and the real interest arises when , as so of en in the New Testament, the Proper Name in the Greek is itself a transliteration or adaption of a Semitic word . Greek is a poor c l anguage for su h a purpose, and the Semitic words lose in trans c literation many of their most striking characteristics . The Patriar hs ' ‘ : Yi s d Ya ci cob are shorn of their gutturals é k, and l become AB AAM I caaK I aKmB P , , and , and there is nothing to tell the reader ’ ’ h I t kh that Abraham s is an English , Isaac s is a (or very nearly), ’ ‘ ’ Jacob s c c az n while is the pe uliar Semiti . Moreover, without private retranslator c information , the from Greek into a Semiti language would not know where to put the gutturals in : as a matter of fact, h A aa c c a it I craax the in fip p omes between the se ond and third , the in c f a I a c omes instead of the irst , and the in o omes between the a K and the . These difficulties lie in the nature of the languages and confront n we a translator as soo as he sets about his task . When therefore find that the older Syriac Versions, speaking generally, do not simply N e w transliterate the Testament Proper Names, but give the proper c i n c Semiti equivalent, we are obviously the presen e of a learned a B u chievement, of a work of iblical learning which demands el cidation c and explanation . How did the Syria translator come by his information 9 A few words may here be said on the Syriac Versions of which n . c c accou t will be taken here The Syria Vulgate, commonly alled 1 Th e commemoration of a ce rtain Ao uhq at Nicome dia on March 25 is give n ’ ’ by Li etz mann from th e ancie nt Syriac Martyrology as dvl s I t doesn t l ook q uite s o bad in Syriac l etters ! SYRIAC FORMS OF NEW TESTAMENT NAMES 3 the Peshitta, comprises the greater part of the Old and New Testa c ments . It is preserved with a surprising absen e of variation in f c many MSS . , some of which are as old as the ifth entury . The Canonical Books of the Old Testament were translated originally w direct from the Hebre , probably by Jews rather than Christians ; but certain books, notably that of Isaiah , seem to have been revised ’ - B . s o B from the Greek ible The called Apocrypha , such as the ook of Wisdom, must have been translated from the Greek . The text of the Peshitta in the N e w Testament is also a revision ; it is now z Rabbula B generally recogni ed that this revision was made by , ishop r 41 1 435 . c of Edessa f om to . No MS of the A ts or Pauline Epistles previous to this revision survives , but two MSS . of the Gospels are ’ c known , Cureton s MS . and the Sinai Palimpsest, whi h represent the Rabbula B texts current before . esides these MSS . we have the scanty remains of Syriac literature earlier than the fifth century, notably A s A D m 3 3 hraate . 7 the works of p ) and Ephrai (d . A large mass of evidence tends to shew that the form in which the G ospel generally circulated among Syriac - speaking Christians Rabbul a before the time of was not the Four separate Gospels, but ’ D c Tatian s iatessaron this work survi ves in a late Arabi translation , but the Syriac text from which this Arabic translation was made had been assimilated wholesale to the Peshitta. In any case, the Arabic cannot be depended on for details connected with the spelling of Proper Names . Our three chief authorities, therefore, are the Sinai Palimpsest (S), Cure tonian c the MS . (C), and the Peshitta (P). A later Syria version of the parts of the New Testament not comprised in the v iz 2 2 3 J a Peshitta ( . Peter, and John , ude, and the Apoc lypse), Philox enus M abbo h c made in the sixth century for of g , is ited as Many of the Proper Names in the Gospels are mentioned by A h raate s G enealo i p , whose works include a Homily on the Gospel g c for his eviden e, where necessary, is quoted as A . It is clear that 1 A hraates D the most part p used the iatessaron . ’ Rabbula s revision of the text was in many ways drastic and - thorough going, but fortunately the Proper Names were very little altered . His procedure was not unlike that of the English Revisers 1 881 wh o c of , also left the Proper Names mu h as they were, though in other respects they made alterations in the direction of conformity to the Greek . The proof of the above statement lies in the very ‘ The num e a t A the a i l z a S iaca v l i l 894 vol e e n Patro o r o . b r f r is p g y y , ( ), ii PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY fe w c c numerous agreements of S, C, and P, and the very ases of a tual I) B z e ff c . c di eren e For instan e, the final in eel ebub is att sted by no M w but Rabb ula S. Greek , so far as I kno , retains it, following both 1 4 A 7 . S and C, and also in ustifi The agreement between S, C , and P the Gospels is the j c for ation using P in the rest of the New Testament, where S and C c fail us .

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