ana translation

INTRODUCTION
xix
Prayer of Manasses, the second [Fourth] Book of Esdras, and the
Maccabees. The New Testament extracts are from (1)
The Pauline
Epistles, (2) The Gospels. Nothing is selected from the Acts, the
Catholic Epistles, or the Apocalypse. All the above are as already
stated from the Peshitta text, with the exceptions above noted of
Books of Chronicles, of Esdras, and of Daniel. All are illustrated by
extracts from Commentaries, some translated from the Greek (of
Athanasius, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and others), some cited
from the Syriac of such writers as Ephraim and Severus of Antioch.
In many places the continuity of the Scriptural series is interrupted by
the insertion of other matter, chosen in each case as illustrative of the
preceding or following passages, or instructive otherwise to students of
the Bible. Thus (a) between the extracts from the Book of Judges
and those from the Books of Kings, we have a compendious note on
the Greek Versions of the Old Testament, and another on the Canon
of Scripture. And (6) after the extracts from the Historical Books, a
memorandum follows, of the dynasties that ruled in Judah and Israel,
in Assyria, Persia, and Egypt, and the duration of each. Again (c)
to those from Daniel is subjoined a note on the Septuagintal Version,
and on its translation by Paul of Telia, the date of each being assigned.
So finally, at the end of the New Testament selections, an account is
inserted (taken from Eusebius, H.E., lib. n) of the first preachers of
the Gospel of Christ, and of the evils that befel His persecutors.
2. From a sentence in the note on the Persian dynasty of the Sassanidae,
Dr. Wright infers that this Catena was compiled before the death
of the last king of that line little
(651),* more than thirty years after
the completion of Paul's Version, whence our Extracts from Chronicles
and Nehemiah, as well as those from 1 Esdras and Daniel are drawn.
If this inference is accepted, we have in this compilation at once the
earliest existing record (outside of the actual MSS of the Version) of
Paul's work, and the earliest citations from its text. But the MS
itself (Add. 12168) is of the eighth or perhaps the ninth century.
3.
Turning back to the facts above stated concerning the Old Testament
passages presented in the Catena, we proceed to note some important
points.
the
* CataL, pp. 905, 906. Yet it may be that, though the memorandum was
written before 651, the Catena in which it has been inserted is of later date.