Some have thought that the translator also used Targ-ums. Had he been a Jew or a Jewish Christian this could be readily accounted for, even without having recourse to the supposition that the Targnms were actually used • since Jewish modes of interpretation were prevalent in Palestine, and there would therefore be an approach to the Chal daic usus loquendi. Gesenius and Credner argue very plausibly that the use of a Targum in differ ent books is clear. But the passages they adduce are not convincing. Thus the former quotes Is.
xxxiii. 7, where the Syriac renders 11.)..A.1..3 clon._ if he shews them, in the third person, the Chaldee having e. flr19 411N as the Syriac read it ; whereas the Chaldee shOuld be read in the first person, 'INT;•.?„ But the reading is corrupt here, because Ephrem has the first per .", son, 11_4, which must have been originally in the Peshito (Commentar ueber den Yemia, vol.i. pp. 83, 84). The strongest argument against the use of any of our present Targ-ums is that they were not then in existence. Elements embodied in them were current in Pa/estine, but they had not been wrought up and enlarged as they now are. One thing is certain, that the version was taken from the original Hebrew. In establishing this fact, external and internal arguments unite. The kext at its basis is substantially the Masoretic one.
Eichhorn has tried to show, from the constitu ents of the version itself, that it proceeded from several persons. Without assenting to all his arguments, or attaching importance to many of his presumptive circumstances, we are disposed to agree with him in opinion—not that it was made in pieces at different times, but at the same time generally, as a work for the use of the Syrian churches. Tradition is favourable to this hypo thesis, if tradition has any weight ; and the words of Ephrem himself agree, where he says on Josh. xv. 28, 'Since those who translated into Syriac did not understand the signification of the Hebrew. word' (Von Lengerke, Comment. Critica de Ephrem. Syr. s. s. interprete, p. 24). The Peshito contains all the canonical books of the O. T. The apocry phal ones were not originally included ; but they must have been rendered into Syriac soon after, for Ephrem quotes them. In his day the books of the Maccabees were wanting, and the additions to Daniel.
The Peshito in the N. T. is part of the version on the O. T., and was made continuously with it. Bishop Marsh argues conclusively against Michaelis, that it did not appear till after the canon had been formed ; but he errs in putting the close of the canon about the middle of the 2c1 century. It'
wants the second and third epistles of John, the second of Peter, the epistle of Jude, and the Apo calypse. Nor were these books originally a part of it, as Hug supposes, asserting that they gradu ally disappeared from it in the 4th century. Ber tholdt has shown the reverse (Einleit. Theil p. 635).
As the O. T. was made from the original He brew, the N. T. part was translated from the Greek.
In consequence of the variety observable in the mode of translating different books, Hug thinks that the N. T. proceeded from different hands ;.
and this is 'perhaps correct, for the Gospels and Acts hardly seem to have been rendered by the same person. Hug assigns it to the 'cowl? Mons, or unrevised text. The old Latin and it belong to the most ancient period of the text, and. therefore ag,ree so strikingly-. But the text was revised like that of the old Latin ; which accounts for many modern or Constantinopolitan readings. The Peshito, as we have it, represents a mixed Greck text—the ancient basis appearing through the later revision. The centre of revision was Edessa, where it was made in the former half of the 5th century. Hence it may be said that the present text of the Peshito belongs to the early part of the 5th century. Griesbach's statemeht is exaggerated —‘Diversis temporibus ad Grxcos codices plane diversos iterum itentmque recognita esse videtur'— but Ile afterwards qualified it in his Heletemata where he speaks of but one reviser, and says very correctly that it took place in the epistles more than in the gospels. The able remarks of Hug led to this partial retractation.* Gregory Bar He brus says that the Peshito has an impure, rude, and inelegant diction. Passages to this effect from Gregory's grammar are given by Assemani (Biblioth. Oriental. p. 279, et seqq.), to which Wiseman has added another. Perhaps Bar Hebneus thought it exhibited the impure dialect used by the inhabit ants of Palestine and Lebanon, as disting-uished from the pure and elegant dialect which prevailed at Edessa and in all ulterior Syria. But the ver sion was not made in Palestine ; and its language was pure and good at the time of its origin. The late period at which Bar Hebrxus wrote helped to disqualify him for judging of language current so long before his day.