Fragments of the Commentary of Ephrem the Syrian on the Diatessaron

that it is not proper to criticise persons like Zachary and Elisabeth who are said to have been immaculate ‘in all their condition of life,’ for here again the editor notes that one of his copies reads ‘in all their dwelling.’ There can be little doubt as to the correct reading; but here the Sinai text comes to our aid, and solves the problem as to what had been puzzling the Armenian scribes, by telling us that Zachary and Elisabeth were ‘without blame in all their conversation’; the word which we render ‘conversation,’ ܥ̈ܡܪܐ dwellings/conversation, has been referred to its root which means to ‘dwell’ or ‘inhabit.’ We have thus an agreement between the Old Syriac text and that of Tatian in a very free and forcible translation.

But we need not say more on this point, except to add that what is true of Ephrem is also true of later Syriac commentators, especially of those who derive from him. Their comments as well as their texts are to be used in the determination of Old Syriac readings, and a trained ear will often catch the refrain of such readings and be able to separate them from the rest of the passage in which they may be imbedded.

It will, therefore, be admitted that the Ephrem commentary deserves critical editing, with a view to determine something more than the pre-existence, early diffusion and harmonisation of the four Gospels. And this is rendered the more necessary because the Editor of the Latin translation has not given us a scientific text; of the two copies, A and B, which he uses, one is an editorial recension made by a certain Nerses, in which difficulties have been conjecturally got rid of, and texts speculatively improved in such a way that we can only describe the work as in certain passages de-Ephremized. It would have been better to have printed the text merely from the copy A, without any reference to the other copy, than to combine the two, often so as to produce a text of which we can only say that, whatever it is, it is not the text of Ephrem. The first step then in studying the work is to purify it of some of the editorial B-readings and of all the composite A + B readings. I am sorry that my ignorance of Armenian does not permit me to undertake this correction¹. But, if I cannot do this, I am glad

¹ It will also be necessary to correct a great many of the editor's references to the Old Testament which are demonstrated to be incorrect, as soon as we refer to the Syriac Bible, as well as to correct such lacunae of reference as in the passage