THE SECOND PREFACE.

...he asserted the authentic readings in doubtful places and clarified ambiguous meanings. No one was better able to perform this task than Ephrem; for he was exceptionally skilled in the languages in which the Sacred Books were written—Hebrew, Chaldean In this 18th-century context, "Chaldean" refers to Aramaic or Syriac, the language of the region., and Greek—as his own writings demonstrate and as our hagiographers have well observed. Likewise, he was born and lived in that region of the world where the great events of history took place, where the human race (the primary subject of the Divine Scriptures) was established and first lived, and where it was later restored after being lost. Furthermore, it was of no small importance for completing this work that many of the Jews who were relocated to Mesopotamia and Persia settled there; it is credible that the sacred books stored and guarded among them remained copied from the most ancient original manuscripts until the age of Blessed Ephrem. Bartolocci, in his Rabbinic Library, clearly demonstrates that the Jews had very famous academies in Mesopotamia at that time; and the most illustrious Assemani Giuseppe Simone Assemani (1687–1768), a famous Lebanese Maronite scholar and librarian at the Vatican. confirms this in the first volume of his Oriental Library by the testimony of both the Jews and our own people. Moreover, the commentaries of the Hebrew interpreters themselves, which are available to anyone, evidently prove this. Ephrem himself indicates that he occasionally visited the schools of the Jews, as he frequently transcribes their traditions, albeit without naming them.

How much the Syriac version Known as the Peshitta. should be valued is suggested by its antiquity, regarding which two things can be affirmed:

one is established and beyond doubt: that among all the versions currently in circulation, the Greek excepted, it is the most ancient and closest to Apostolic times. The other is not indeed certain, but surely not improbable: that it reaches back to the age of the Apostles themselves. For from it, the Apostle Referring to Saint Paul in Ephesians 4:8. transcribes that verse from the sixty-eighth Psalm: Ascending on high, he led captivity captive. The Greek text does not render these words in this way; the Hebrew expresses it thus: You have ascended on high, you have led captivity captive, you have received gifts among men: original Hebrew: לקחת מתנים באדם — laqahta matthanim baadam. These last words are placed according to a Hebrew idiom and have the force of what Paul expressed; for the paragogic beth The Hebrew letter "B" used as a prefix, which can change the meaning of a root word depending on the context. also signifies "on account of," "for," or "for the sake of." This has the same force in the first Epistle of Blessed Peter, chapter 1, verse 4: Who has regenerated us unto an incorruptible inheritance preserved in heaven for you: that is, on your account, for you, for your sake. And indeed, that verse thus explained carries the Apostle’s meaning, but it certainly does not have his exact words. For what is said to be "received" on account of someone is well understood as something soon to be delivered to that same person, or already delivered; yet, as I said, the Hebrew does not have the words which are read unchanged only in the Syriac version, nor do they require any explanation to be seen as agreeing with the text of Saint Paul:

"And you led captivity captive, and gave gifts to the children of men." original Syriac: ܘܫܒܝܬ ܫܒܝܬܐ ܘܝܗܒܬ ܡܘܗܒܬܐ ܠܒܢܝܢܫܐ — w-šbayt šbīṯā w-yahbt mawhabṯā l-bnaynāšā

If anyone should insist that Paul attended to the sense of the Psalm rather than the specific words; just as neither Saint Matthew...