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order via e-mail at thorntons@booknews.demon.co.uk
Syriac
Recent acquisitions
Hoskier, H.C., [Herman
Charles] [1864-1938 ], Codex B and its Allies.
A Study and an
Indictment" two volumes:
Part 1: and Part 2,
sub-titled: Chiefly concerning A [Aleph], but covering three thousand
differences between A and
B in the Four Gospels,
with the evidence supporting each side, including the new manuscript evidence
collected by von Soden, [ Soden, Hermann 1852-1914 ] and the collateral
readings of other important authorities / arranged and digested
by H. C. Hoskier.
London, Quaritch, 1914), [IV] XVI, 497; [IV} 412pp., size 25 x 17 cm.,
English text, with numerous citations from Greek, Latin, Coptic and Syriac
sources, analysing at great length the numerous discrepancies between
several of the early
manuscripts favoured by New Testament textual critics, and arriving at
conclusions unfavourable
to the revised Greek
N.T. text of Westcott and Hort. Half-calf leather binding, mid brown with
matching cloth boards
with calf corners;
a few signs of wear, but generally robust; the elegant spines have
five raised bands, with the titles in
gilt on red polished
leather labels, the author's name in gilt on dark green leather labels,
with double-ruled gilt lines
along the upper and
lower edges of these labels remnant of former library shelf mark affixed
to central and lower parts
of the spines ("19"
and "28" on vol. 1, and "19" and "29" on vol. 2); head and tail bands;
top-edge of pages edged in a dull
reddish-brown; endpapers
orange-brown; front endpapers with the bookplates of Gonville and Caius
College, Cambridge, overprinted by a cancellation stamp; in vol. 1, the
front flyleaf has been removed, with no loss of text; title pages
with inked former
shelfmark ("A.19.28." and "A.19.29." in vols. 1 and 2 respectively); in
vol. 2, six pages have
protruding and slightly
curled paper tabs printed with titles of individual gospels (an original
feature of the published
edition); text clean
and unmarked throughout. [Codex Vaticanus (CODEX B), is a Greek manuscript,
the most
important of all the
manuscripts of Holy Scripture. It is so called because it belongs to the
Vatican Library (Codex
Vaticanus, 1209).
The original home of the Vatican Codex is uncertain. Hort thinks it was
written at Rome; Rendel
Harris, Armitage Robinson,
and others attribute it to Asia Minor. A more common opinion maintains
that it was
written in Egypt.
Armitage Robinson believes that both the Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus were
originally together in
some ancient library.
The Vatican Codex, in spite of the views of Tischendorf, who held for the
priority of the Codex Sinaiticus, discovered by him, is rightly considered
to be the oldest extant copy of the Bible.
£95.00
Ignatius, Bishop
of Antioch, Saint, Martyr, c.35-c.107. W. Cureton : Corpus Ignatianum:
A Complete Collection of the Ignatian Epistles
genuine, interpolated, and spurious; together with numerous extracts from
them, as quoted by ecclesiastical writers down to the tenth century;
in Syriac, Greek, and Latin : an English translation of the Syriac
text, copious notes, and introduction, by William Cureton.London,
Francis and John Rivington, 1849, [4], xvii, lxxxvii, [2], 365, [2]
pp.; double-page pl. of Syriac mss. drawn by Harrietta Cureton, lithographed
in red & black; size 26 x 17 cm., text in Syriac,
Greek, Latin and English. Robust and elegant full dark brown calf leather
binding, with some mottled lighter patches and a few
scuff marks; front and rear covers each blind-ruled with double
lines to form one main central panel, narrower panels along
all four sides, and four corner panels, each corner with blind
stamped floral ornament; spine with title in gilt on red leather
title label , four raised bands with blind stamped floral ornaments
between them; the top 5 cm. of the spine has at some time been
neatly repaired and strengthened, though the repair material now
covers the place where a fifth raised band was originally positioned;
lower part of spine has a former library shelfmark in small white
numerals on black background ("2.81.3"); head and tail bands; lower
rear hinge has a small split, pages edged in red; marbled end papers;
pasted on to the front endpapers are bookplates of Thomas Hodgkin
(1831-1913, a prominent Quaker and historian) and the Woodbrooke
Library (a Quaker institution in Birmingham), with a label indicating
that the Woodbrooke Library received the volume from the library
of Dr. Hodgkin on 12 November 1913; apart from foxing of a
few pages at the beginning and end of the book, and neat pencilled
notes in the margins of about ten pages, the text is clean and unmarked.
Very scarce. ?450.00 An important date in the Ignatian controversy
was the year 1845, when Canon Cureton published a Syriac version
of the epistles to St. Polycarp, the Ephesians, and the Romans. The
three epistles contained in this version appear in a much shorter
form than is found in the Greek text and Latin version. A fragment
of the epistle to the Trallians is incorporated in the epistle to
the Romans, but none of the other epistles appear in the collection.
The text of Cureton's edition was based upon two MSS. in the British
Museum. The former of these two MSS. dates from the sixth century.
It was purchased by Archdeacon Tattam from the convent of St. Mary
Deipara in the Nitrian desert in 1839. The second MS. dates from
the seventh or eighth century, and was brought from Egypt by Archdeacon
Tattam in 1842. Cureton maintained that these three epistles alone
represented the genuine Ignatius, that the Vossian collection contained
these three in an interpolated form, and that the remaining four
letters of the Vossian collection were forgeries. This rekindled
the controversy. Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, afterwards Bishop of
Lincoln, declared the newly-discovered version to be an epitome of
the genuine letters made by an Eutychian heretic. This led Cureton
to a fuller treatment of the question. He had meanwhile discovered
an additional MS. of the three epistles, brought, like the first-named,
from the convent of St. Mary Deipara, and dating from at least the
ninth century. He now published his great work Corpus Ignatianum
(London, 1849), which contains a full treatment of the whole question.
Cureton's view was supported by Bunsen and several eminent scholars.
But it has failed to hold its ground. Apart from the fact that the
seven letters of the Vossian collection were plainly known to Eusebius
and Theodoret, they exhibit a perfect unity of authorship and style
throughout. Cureton's theory requires us to suppose that the interpolator
was able to reproduce in his additions to the letters the most subtle
characteristics of language and grammar. A similar difficulty occurs
when we examine the relation of Cureton's Syriac version to the Syriac
version of the seven letters. The one is plainly derived from the other,
and it is far more probable that the Curetonian Syriac version is an
abridged form of the Syriac version of the seven letters, than that the
latter is an expansion of the former. Epistle to Polycarp, to the Ephesians
and to the Romans: on the left opening Cureton's restored Greek text
at the head with the shorter and longer recensions in parallel, on
the right the Syriac from his ms a at the head with the longer and
shorter Latin versions. For the epistle to the Magnesians, Trallians,
Philadelphians and Smyrnians: the shorter and longer Greek recensions
on the left, the longer and shorter Latin on the right. Fragments
of `Other Ignatian epistles, not mentioned by Eusebius' include epistles
from and to Maria Cassobolita, to the Tarsians, to the Antiochians,
to Hero the Deacon and to the Philippians, in parallel Greek and
Latin; to John Apostle and Evangelist I-II and to S. Mary the Virgin,
in Latin only. -- Testimonies respecting St. Ignatius, and extracts
from the Ignatian epistles as cited by various authors down to the
tenth century, p. [158]-195 -- Passages from the Ignatian epistles,
and extracts from various writers respecting St. Ignatius, in Syriac, p.
[196]-225 -- English translation from the Syriac, p. [226]-55 --
Excerpta Ignatiana Aethiopice, p. [256]-62, Ethiopic and Latin on
facing pages -- Notes, p. [263]-363, with Syriac text of the Epistle to
the Tarsians, obtained by the British Museum in 1847, p. 363-65.
£450.00