Suggestive Readings from the Syriac New Testament [pp. 650-660]

SYRIAC NEW TESTAMENT.
In Acts xx. 28 we have the only passage in the Peshito in
which the word bishop occurs, ap)iskopod, being the Greek
,-7ijo7roz transferred and Syriacised' "Take heed therefore
to yourselves, and to aill the flock over which the Holy Ghost
hath set you I,n +;op 7." In every other passage but one where
the Greek has 7rwixo7ro;, or?rzrzo,-oz, the Syriac has the
word/-c' [ i7/7,, or iaslhis,Tee, pl., whichl is used in vs. 17, and tranisrated li,,,',. ie sent for the c7ders of the church." Tlie same
also is true of those passages where the office of a bishop, or
bishopric, is spoken of, with but one exception, where the Greek
has ~,-zovor1/, the 8Syriac has or k:shahua, or the office of an
elder, the eidership. Thus 1 Timi. iii. I reads in the Syriac, "If
a man desire the eldershlip, or the office of an elder, a good work
Le desires;" and v. 2, "An eider ought to be such an one that
blame is not found in him." The exceptions to the above statement are, for EirLo-zo?, Acts i. 20, where tihe Svriac has
tishui.s/: hs, service or ministry:' His ministry let another take."
As regards 7tior7ro7;, the only exception is in 1 Peter ii. 25,
Ye are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your
souls," where the Greek has k7rivo7rov7, bat the Syriac Ga'oora,
the visitor, or con%forter, or succorer of y-our souls. It thus falls
out, singularly enough, that the only place where the English
version fails to give bishop as the rendering of i7rw ro;ros, and
translates it overseers, is the only place where the word occurs
at all in the Peshito. This fact is the more striking when it is
remnembered that the Nestorian Christians, who have preserved
the Peshito, as also the Chaldeanls, who retain and venerate the
same version, ale Episcopal churches, having bishops among
their existing orders, whom they call apiskopee, while the title
of which we have been Ltreating, k7asyisla, is applied to the
pr)iestloorl, the order next above deacons. The testimony of this
version is therefore exceedingiy suggestive as to the constitution
of the knew Testamient church. According to its showing, even
more clearly than that of thle Greek, thle elder is identical with
the bishop, nor was anL such ldistinct office as that of bishop
known. -Nor can it be reasonably argued that the text has been
corrupted in this respect, for, as lihas been already seen, from the
constitution of the Nestorian and Chald-ean churches, the temp tation to tamper with it would have led in exactly the opposite
direction.
18741.]
655