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

1874.]
SYRIAC NEW TESTAMENT.
657
of him live. For byhis stripes ye were healed." It would hardly
seem possible to make the statement more clear, or to furnish a
more perfect parallel to the utterance of Paul in 2 Cor. v. 21,
"For him that knew no sin for your sakes sin he made, that we
mighlt be in him the righteousness of God."
1 Pet. iii. 20-21 seems also to gather clearness in the Peshito;
at least to lose something of its obscurity. Our English version
reads, "Which sonmet-imes were disobedient, when once the long
suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a
preparing, wherein few, that is eight souls, were saved by water.
The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us
nlot the putting away of the filth of the flesh but the answer of
a good conscience toward God), by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ."
The Syriac reads as follows: "Those who originally (or from
of old) were not obedient in the day of Noah, when the patience
of God commanded an ark to be made in the hope of their
repentance, and eight souls only entered into it and lived by
water: Ye also by the very salme figure live by baptism, (not
when ye wash the body from filth, but when ye confess God
with a pure conscience), and by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ."
It is impossible for one to read the Syriac without noticing
and being often puzzled by the very peculiar punctuation which
characterizes it, often changing, sometimes obscuring, and some times, it must be acknowledged, adding force and beauty to the
text. The peculiarity arises partly from the fact that but two
points are used, aside from the point of interrogation. These
are the: or comma, and the period. Of course all such dis tinctions as are conveyed by the use of the semicolon and colon
in English are simply impossible in Syriac. Nor does there
seemn to be any sufficient rule for the use of the points they have,
and often one is found where the sense would seem imperatively
to demand the other. An illustration of the difference may be
found in Matt. i. 25, "And knew her not until she brought forth
her first-born son. And she called his name Jesus." (Note also
the she, and the first-born, which Alford, following the older
Greek MSS., gives up.) In MIurdock's translation, attention is
called to a marked instance, in which great confusion, and in
fact unintelligible obscurity, result from the punctuation of the