Subject: Syr Peshitta

From: [email-masked] (William Petersen)
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 17:04:33 -0500

A quick reply to Waltz's question about:

>So I would ask again: Is there any evidence available which actually
>fixes the date of the Peshitta, other than the date of the earliest
>manuscripts?

Yes, there is, and it is in the Patristic citations:  who presents and who
does not present citations in the sometimes unique form of the Peshitta.
See the articles on Rabbula's text and the text of his bio, and the volumes
in the Aland series (Das NT in syrischer Ueber...).  I know of no evidence
(but then my knowledge is very limited...) of clear use of "the" Peshitta
prior to the fifth century.  Aphrahat does not cite its text, nor does
Ephrem.  Where apparently "Peshitta" readings crop up in earlier works, we
must remember two things.  First, even the Peshitta's text agrees, at
points, with the (apparently older) Diatessaron and Vetus Syra.  Therefore,
what might mistakenly be taken for "Peshitta" readings in, say, Ephrem, must
always be compared with the Diatessaron and the Vetus Syra.  If one of them
has the same reading, then nothing can be proven regarding the Peshitta.
Second, the tendency always and everywhere has been to revise the texts one
is copying in the direction of the text "standard" in one's own time.
Therefore, we cannot be sure that Eprhem's text--even in his Commentary--has
been transmitted as he wrote it.  Copyists may have removed the "Old Syriac"
or "Diatessaron" reading, and substituted a Peshitta reading.  (Baumstark,
in fact, adduced points where he thought the disagreement of the Arabic
Diatessaron from Ephrem established that Ephrem's text, or the Diatessaron
Ephrem was commenting upon, had been revised away from the Diatessaron text,
for Baumstark found the Arabic in agreement with other Diatessaronic
witnesses--but Ephrem giving some other reading.  See his "Zur Geschichte
des Tatianstextes vor Aphrem," OrChr 36 [= III.14] [1941], pp. 1-12.)

The best tool for studying the Peshitta is clearly the Muenster volumes
(title in my prev. post), which present the entire textual history of the
Syriac versions.

--Petersen, Penn State Univ.