ana translation

INTEODUCTION.
SECTION I. Prefatory.
THE Remnants of the sixth-century Syriac Version of
the New Testament,
which form Part I of this volume, though none of them is large
and all four together make a collection of but moderate bulk, yet
possess as a whole the unity of a common history which has thrown
them together as a group, while each of them moreover is in itself a
complete Book.
The present Part II makes (in this respect) a humbler
claim : it professes to be merely a gathering of fragments, hitherto
overlooked, of sundry Books of the Old Testament in the Syriac Version
made in the seventh century from the Septuagint, usually described
as the " Syro-Hexaplar " Version. These fragments have been put
together and printed here because that Version, valuable though
secondary, has reached us in an imperfect form (with some Books
mutilated and others lacking) ;
and they have escaped the notice of its
previous Editors, and are now for the first time published.
In describing them as fragments, however, it is not meant to convey
that they are mere broken pieces, each sundered by accident from its
context. They are extracts, every one of them selected with intelligent
purpose by a careful compiler, most of them with a certain continuity
so as to form a series. Some are very short, but each can stand by
itself ;
each relates some fact or facts, or teaches some lesson, or does
both. Each and all are here presented as contributing something of
appreciable value towards filling up in a measure the gaps in the
Version to which they belong.
SECTION II. The Syro-Hexaplar Version : its Importance.
All who are interested in the textual study of the Old Testament in
general, and in particular of the Old Testament in the Greek, will
agree that to recover any missing portion of this singularly faithful
Syriac reflex of the Greek is a matter of importance. It is a link
between the Biblical student of to-day and that chief of Biblical