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Memoirs of Edessa and Other Ancient Syriac Documents
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[3015] Cureton gives “chains,” which in his notes he changes to “silks,” or “muslins,” adopting, with C., the reading *** instead of the *** of the printed text. Mos. Chor. calls Aggæus “un fabricant de coiffures de soie,” according to the translation of Florival; or “quendam serici opificem,” according to Whiston. It may be added that the word *** is doubtless the same as our “silk,” which is only a form of Sericum, an adjective from Seres, the people whose country was the native home of the silk-worm.—Tr.
[3016] These terms could only have been used here in the sense of the Law of Moses and the Gospel. If by the Acts of the Apostles is meant the work of Luke, this passage seems to show that the compiler of this account of Addæus wrote some years subsequently to the events which he relates, or that it has been added by a later interpolator. For at the earlier period of Addæus’ ministry no other part of the New Testament was written than the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, which is probably the Gospel here meant.
[3017] Or “Ditornon.” The reading of the ms. is not clear. It seems that it ought to be Diatessaron, which Tatian has the Syrian compiled from the four Gospels about the middle of the second century. This was in general use at Edessa up to the fourth century, and Ephraem Syrus wrote a commentary on it. If this be so, we have here a later interpolation. [The translator says (of Ditornon and Diatess.): “The two words would differ but slightly in the mode of writing.” He also corrects Cureton, who calls Tatian “the Syrian:” it should be “the Assyrian.”]
[3018] Lit. “the hand of priesthood:” and so passim.—Tr.
[3019] Strabo, de Persis, b. xv. (ch. iii.): “They sacrifice to fire and to water.”
[3020] See his letter in Mos. Chor., infra.
[3021] Dio Cassius, liv. 8: “Augustus fixed as the boundaries of the empire of the Romans the Tigris and Euphrates.”
[3022] See it also, with some variations, in Mos. Chor., infra.
[3023] It was Pilate’s duty, as governor of Judea, to send an account to the Roman Government of what had occurred in respect to Jesus; and his having done so is mentioned by Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and several other writers.
[3024] The word is evidently misspelt. The name intended may have been confounded with that of the Albinus who was made governor of Judea at a later period by Nero, a.d. 62. The same person is referred to, in the Exit of Mary, infra: “Sabinus, the governor who had been appointed by the Emperor Tiberius; and even as far as the river Euphrates the governor Sabinus had authority.” The person meant can only be Vitellius, who was then governor of Syria, who removed Pilate from the administration of Judea, sending Marcellus in his stead, and ordered him to appear before Tiberius at Rome. The emperor died before he reached Rome.
[3025] No mention is made by historians of any war with Spain. But about this time Vitellius, mentioned in the preceding note, was mixed up with the wars of the Parthians and Hiberians; and, as Hiberi is a name common to Spaniards, as well as Hiberians, the apparent error may have arisen in translating the letter out of Latin into Syriac.
[3026] Baronius says Pilate violated the law by crucifying our Lord so soon after sentence had been passed, whereas a delay of ten days was required by a law passed in the reign of Tiberius.
[3027] Tiberius is said by Tertullian (Apol., 5) to have referred to the senate the question of admitting Christ among the gods. This has been interpolated into the epistle of Tiberius to Abgar as given in Moses Chor., B. ii. c. 33. He also adds another letter from Abgar in reply to this.
[3028] This word has been so much distorted and disfigured by the transcribers, that I am unable to recognise what is the place intended.—Cureton.
[3029] This word may be read Ortyka, and may be intended for Ortygia near Syracuse, which was not far from the island of Capreæ, where Tiberius then resided, seldom leaving it to go farther than to the neighbouring coast of Campania.
[3030] Lit. “the other villages.” So, in several passages of these Documents, “the rest of the other—.” The habit of including two or more distinguished nations under a class to which only one of them belongs was not unknown among classical writers also: as when, e.g., Thucydides speaks of the Peloponnesian war as the most remarkable of all the wars that preceded it. Milton’s imitation, “The fairest of her daughters, Eve” [Paradise Lost, iv. 324], is well known.—Tr.
[3031] The *** (and) seems to have been altered into *** (of).—Wright. Perhaps “of” is the better reading.—Tr.
[3032] It is plain from the context here, as well as wherever it occurs in these early Syriac Documents, that this title (or that of Guide alone) is precisely the same as that of Bishop, although the Greek word ἐπίσκοπος had not yet obtained in the East. The first mention we find of the title Bishop (in these pages) is in the Acts of Sharbil about a.d. 105–112, where Barsamya is called “the Bishop of the Christians,” although he is more generally designated as here. It is also found in the Teaching Simon Cephas, sub fin., which seems to have been written early in the second century or at the end of the first. The passage in the Teaching of Addæus, p. 665, infra, where it occurs, was interpolated at a much later period. [The parenthetic words of this note are supplied by the translator.]
[3033] Perhaps Φιλώτας.
[3034] Perhaps the same as Izates: see Jos., Antiq., xx. ii. 1, 4; Tac., Ann., xii. 14.
[3035] This seems to be the person spoken of by Moses Chor., B. ii. c. 30, under the name “Mar-Ihap, prince d’Aghtznik,” as one of the envoys sent by Abgar to Marinus.
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