ana translation

INTRODUCTION
xi
SECTION III.
The Extant MSS. of
it.
No copy, however, of the whole Syro-Hexaplar Old Testament is
known to be now extant, nor is every part of it forthcoming even in
detached MSS. Yet one MS, apparently the second volume of such a
copy, survives, including all the poetical and prophetical Books.
Another MS, the first volume of a similar (or possibly the same) copy,
is known to have belonged in the sixteenth century to Andreas Masius,
who was the first
European scholar to direct attention to this Version.
He used it in his edition of the Book of Joshua (Josuae Historia, 1594),
and describes it
as containing, besides that Book, " Judicum historias
et Regum, praeterea Paralipomena, Esdram, Esther, Judith ; denique
Tobiae et Deuteronomii bonam partem,"
the former half (that is) of
the Old Testament, mutilated at both ends so as to lack the first four
Books of the Pentateuch, with the earlier part of Deuteronomy and
the latter chapters of Tobit. This MS has unfortunately been missing
since his time, and of it we have only his citations in his Josuae
Historia, and his other writings.
But the second volume (above referred to) has fared better.
It was
obtained by Cardinal Borromeo* from the Convent of the Theotokos
in the Nitrian Desert of Egypt whence the British Museum has since
derived its great treasures of Syriac MSS, and placed by him in the
Ambrosian Library (C 313 inf.),
which he founded (1609) in Milan.
It is
unmutilated, and probably was written in the eighth (or early
ninth) century. Its contents are as follows : The Psalter (including
Ps. cli.), Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Wisdom, Sirach, the
Twelve Minor Prophets, Jeremiah (with Baruch, Threni, and Epistle),
Daniel (with Susanna, Bel and Dragon), Ezekiel, Isaiah.
The loss, however, of the MS of Masius has been in great measure
compensated by the subsequent acquisition of single copies
of some of
the Books it contained. One such copy, of Fourth Kings, has long
been in Paris, in the Bibliotheque Nationale ; it came like the Milan
MS from the Nitrian Convent. Among the treasures acquired from
the same ancient storehouse by the British Museum, are single
of Joshua, Judges (with Ruth),f and Third Kings ;
copies
and besides these,
* Federigo Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan (1564-1631).
t
It may be that Ruth is to be understood as included with Judges in Masius' list.