In the last article of this series I listed the Beatitudes as they appear in canonical Luke, in Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew, in the oldest Old Latin ("k," Codex Bobiensis), and in canonical, Greek Matthew. What was missing from those lists was the oldest Old Syriac (Syr-s, the Sinaitic Palimpsest). I would now like to add the list of Beatitudes that appears in Syr-s:
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst for justice: for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful: for upon them shall be mercies.
Blessed are those who are pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you and persecute you, and when they shall say against you what is evil, for my own names' sake.
But rejoice ye and be glad in that day: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted their fathers the prophets.
We now have a lot to consider, so I would like to show it diagrammatically, as follows:
Luke Shem-Tob "k" "Syr-s" Canonical (Grk.) Mt.
poor wait (weep) poor/spirit poor/spirit poor/spirit
hunger innocent/heart meek mourn mourn
weep pursue peace weeping meek meek
hate you persecuted hunger&thirst hunger&thirst hunger&thirst
rejoice-fath.-pr. persecute you merciful merciful merciful
rejoice-proph. clean/heart pure/heart pure/heart
peaceful peacemakers peacemakers
persecution persecuted persecuted
you persecuted hate&persec you persecute you
rejoice-broth-pr-b4u rejoice-fath-pr rejoice-men-pr-b4u
I don't know about you, dear reader, but I find the above table extremely interesting.
What do we see here? First of all, there is the steady growth of the list of Beatitudes, from five to ten. In the first three columns, one of them is about those who weep/are weeping ("wait" in Shem-Tob is a scribal error for "weep," as I've shown before). "Mourn" in Syr-s is an innovation, based on a kind of reverse synecdoche by which "mourn" represents "weep." The canonical (Greek) textual tradition follows this innovation. We see that the order of "mourn/weep" and "meek" is inverted in the Old Latin textual tradition (here represented by "k"), an inversion that continued all the way into the Vulgate. But the order in canonical (Greek) Matthew is that of the Old Syriac (here represented by Syr-s). We also see the "those who pursue peace" in Shem-Tob's Hebrew (which we know to be correct because of catchword connections) is correctly translated in "k" as "pacifici," but suddenly becomes "peacemakers" in both Syr-s and canonical Matthew.
A word needs to be said here about the "Western" (Syro-Latin) textual tradition. As pointed out by Frederic Henry Chase, in his book THE SYRO-LATIN TEXT OF THE GOSPELS (1895), the Old Latin and Old Syriac textual traditions are closely inter-related, and should really be considered a single stream, one that is older than the Greek texts that eventually became canonical. He posits Antioch as their place of origin, noting that the young Christian community there would have included speakers of Syriac (Christian Aramaic), Latin, and Greek. Both of these textual streams were suppressed by the institutional Church in the fourth and fifth centuries, in favor of the Greek textual tradition, which they made canonical. The suppression was done so well that only about fifty examples of the Old Latin survived, and only TWO examples of the Old Syriac survived (both of which were discovered in the nineteenth century).
I mention the above because it is important to understand the "k" and "Syr-s" are OLDER than the Greek texts that eventually became canonical. In Latin-speaking countries, the older texts were replaced by the Vulgate; in Syriac-speaking countries, they were replaced by the Peshitta, sometimes called "the Vulgate of the East."
Returning to the table that I've included above, We see that the list of Beatitudes in canonical (Greek) Matthew is nearly identical to that in the Sinaitic Old Syriac (Syr-s), following its order and its innovations. I believe, therefore, that Matthew was first translated into Greek from Syriac (Christian Aramaic). Many have suspected that Greek Matthew had a Semitic substratum, probably Aramaic, and now we can see how that probably came about.
At the same time, it appears that Papias' statement that Matthew had collected the Logia (Sayings) of Jesus and written them down in the Hebrew language, and that the others had then translated them as best they could, was also correct.
Text Copyright © 2020 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.
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