S. Ephraim's Quotations from the Gospel: (Texts and Studies: Contributions to Biblical and Patristic L)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 edition. Excerpt: ...the reference to 'bosoms' shewing that the Biblical statement is in the B. G. Q. 4 mind of the writer and not a generalised reference to the Incarnation. But the diction in two very important particulars is that of C and not of the Peshitta; the Word is feminine, and It puts on not flesh (ioa=a), but a body For 6 Xo'yos o-ap£ iytvtro Pesh. has £am noa=a i&An, but Chas ooa Vt yW=ni and Aphraates twice quotes the verse in agreement with C. That the Peshitta gives the revision and C the original Syriac rendering is made highly probable by the fact that even the Peshitta has iia. in all seven places where crapf occurs in the sixth chapter of S. John. It is not necessary here to examine the reasons which led to the original adoption of the term 'body' in Joh i 13, 14, or to those which led to the subsequent rejection of it in favour of a more literal rendering of the Greek.1 But I may remark that there is no surer test of the Biblical text used by a Syriac author than the phrase used for the Incarnation. On the one hand the Acts of Thomas, the Doctrine of Addai, Aphraates and S. Ephraim, constantly speak of our Lord having 'clothed Himself with a body'; on the other, Isaac of Antioch and the biographer of Rabbula agree with the Peshitta in speaking of the Word made flesh, a phrase which (so far as I know) never occurs in Syriac literature before the 5 th century. This passage also is quoted by Philoxenus (B.M. Add. 12164, fol. 131 ra), with the reading ia. Jiomo 'and became a body.' This reading is exactly what is found in C, and as it is metrically satisfactory it may very well be the actual wording used by S. Ephraim. John iii 34 = Lamy i 267 rdl on Therefore not by measure gave his Father to him the Spirit. This passage presents...