ana translation

xlii
INTRODUCTION
SECTION XII. AUTHORITIES FOR OUR TEXT: MANUSCRIPTS.
A brief list of the Manuscripts on which the text of this Edition
of our Four Epistles has been constructed is given below (pp. 1, 2),
prefixed to the Syriac Text. In this Section I proceed to give such
fuller details concerning them as seem worth recording.* I deal first
with the MSS of the earlier group (see p. 96 infr.), which I distinguish
as A, the later being B, with an "Intermediate" group between.
(i.)
MSS of Group A (Early).
Cod. 1. (British Museum, Add. 14623, Catal. DCCLXXXI.)
Of our MSS this stands first, alike in age and in textual value. It
is free from the corrupt readings which here and there disfigure
printed texts, and though
it is not without errors of its own, they are
mostly errors of sight on the scribe's part,
the
and not due to editorial
attempts at correction. Examples of such errors are : (r^Lt for f
" -
(2 Pet. i. 4), jOCuAJjj for .OOlAwJLj (il. ii. 13, and Jud. 12), jAiiO
for iAaSD (46. iii. 4), ^tm) for ^>,,li,tt>l (ib. 7). But the interpolation
.Ol_^O (ib.
iii.
2), and the great divergences (by omission and
insertion) in Jud. 24 are grave exceptions to the general trustworthiness
of its text. On the whole, however, its superiority to all the
rest is so marked as to place it at the head of group A, and seems to
warrant us in accepting its readings, as in some cases has been done
in our text, even where it stands alone. The MS as a whole is not
to be classed as Biblical ;
it is a miscellany of which the other contents
are extracts from approved divines, Syriac, or Greek in a Syriac
translation ;
its only Biblical section is No. 7, which exhibits our
Epistles. But it is not therefore to be presumed that the compiler of
the MS regarded our Four Epistles as non-canonical, for he includes
them with the Three of the Peshitta, arranging all Seven as on an equal
footing (though not in their normal Greek order), 1, 2, 3 John; James;
1, 2 Peter; Jude : Alone of all our MSS it was written in Egypt,
but by a Mesopotamian monk of Dara (not far from Mardin), and was
* It may be taken for granted that all of them are (directly or indirectly)
Jacobite (the Maronite being presumably derived from Jacobite sources), as
follows from the fact that they include these Epistles, which were unknown to
the Nestorian Churches.