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QUOTATIONS AND REFERENCES. 201
fragments, Hero i (see lll. p. 102), and Tats. 2 (see above, p. 198).
And from it the
Armenian translator got the additional epistles. In his Meleteniata Merx did not say
whether this version was confined to these five additional epistles or contained the
seven also. But on the appearance of Land's Anecdota Syriaca, containing some
hitherto unpublished fragments (see above, p. 190 sq), he was convinced that these
also belonged to his third version [Zeilschi: fiir IViss. TJieol. 1. c). Thus he supposes
three distinct translations of the seven epistles into Syriac.
We are constrained to ask whether the demand for the Ignatian letters
among native Syrians was likely to have been so great as this hypothesis requires.
But, independently of the a priori improbability, this theory of a second and third
translation involves strange difficulties of which Merx takes no account, (i) The
hyi:)othesis of a Severian Syriac is based on the fact that the quotations in Severus do
not agree with the 'Curetonian.' Yet as Severus wrote in Greek, and not in Syriac,
it would be most improbable that th.ey should agree. The translator or translators of
the works of Severus would be much more likely to have translated the Ignatian
quotations bodily with the text of Severus than to have hunted them out in an existing
Syriac Version. At all events, if they do not agree with the only Syriac Version of
which we have any knowledge, it is a safe inference that they did so translate them.
Merx again lays some stress on the fact ('gravissimum est') that the quotations of
Severus agree with those of Timotheus (p. 55). If they had agreed to any remarkable
extent, this would be a solid argimient in favour of their having been taken from a common
source, i.e. from a Syriac Version accessible to the translators of both. But even
then we should have to remember: (a)
That the agreement might arise from the fact that
both followed the Greek closely ; (/3) That, as these translations were apparently made
in the Monophysite interests and probably under the same influences and about the
same time, the very expressions in the more striking quotations might be transmitted
from the one translation to the other. But in fact the only quotations which the
two have in common are Ro7n. 6 and Magn. 8. (i) The first of these extends only to
nine words, iiriTpiyf/aTi fioi fiiix-qTriv elvai rov irdOovs rov Qeov yuou. It is twice quoted
in Timotheus and three times in Severus : see pp. 174 sq, 178 sq.
The two quotations
of Timotheus do not exactly agree between themselves, nor do those of Severus
among themselves. But one of Timotheus which is a strictly literal rendering of the
Greek agrees exactly with one of Severas. Why should they not so agree This is
essentially one of those stock quotations of which I spoke, where agreement was
probable. Indeed the only words in which there was room for any real difference are
iTnTpiTreiu and fxt/xriTris, of which the former is translated by its common equivalent in
the Peshito, and the latter by the substantive derived from the verb which represents
fiifielcrdat, fiifj.T]rriv yiv€cr9ai., in that version, (ii)
The second quotation, Magn. 8, is somewhat
longer, though
it does not extend beyond a few lines. Here however Timotheus
and Severus by no means agree. Being literally translated, the passages could not but
coincide in many respects; yet in points of Syriac idiom there are several differences, and
in one part there is a wide divergence, attributable to various readings in the Greek text
of the Ignatian Epistles. Timotheus read X670S di'5ios ovk cltto 0-17^ TrpoeXddiv, whereas
the text of Severus omitted atSios ovk. This difference is
reproduced in the Syriac.
Merx indeed would insert a negative in Severus by reading Jy3 r