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Chorepiscopus of the diocese of Mabbug, who was commissioned with the
translation of the NT (and parts of the OT) by
BibOr, vol. 2, 82–3; Guidi,
404, 410–12). This piece of information is unsuspicious, as later references
to this version link it directly with Philoxenos without mentioning
Polykarpos (
Awṣar Roze;
While Bar ʿEbroyo and Michael provide an approximate date for Polykarpos’s version by linking it with Philoxenos, the subscriptions of the Ḥarqlean Version (615/16) give the exact date ‘819 of Alexander of Macedonia’ (= AD 507/08). These subscriptions provide additional information: first, that the Greek model was associated with Caesarea in Palestine and with the famous library directed by Pamphilus; second, that this version for the first time included the Minor Catholic Epistles and Revelation, neither of which was part of the Peshitta canon.
Unfortunately no ms. of the original version survives. Our knowledge of the version’s text derives from four sources: 1. from quotations in the later writings of Philoxenos (collected in part by B. Aland); 2. from quotations in the margins of the Masora mss. (ed. N. Wiseman 1828); 3. from quotations preserved in the Euthalian prologue to the Pauline epistles (ed. S. P. Brock 1979); and 4. from a 6th-cent. translation of the Minor Catholic Epistles and Revelation (ed. J. Gwynn 1909, 1897), extant almost exclusively in mss. of the second millennium (an Arabic translation of the epistles exists in ms. Sin. Arab. 154, ed. M. Dunlop Gibson 1899). This translation can only be identified with Polykarpos’s version by internal evidence (Gwynn 1909, introduction). All these remnants reveal the version’s intermediary position between the Peshitta and the Ḥarqlean regarding the refinement of translation technique; it is closer to the Greek than the Peshitta, but is not a ‘mirror translation’ of the Greek like the Ḥarqlean (in general, see Greek, Syriac translations from).
Polykarpos’s version received a thorough revisional update, which resulted in
the Ḥarqlean Version (615/16). This might be the reason for the almost
complete disappearance of Polykarpos’s version, which was outdated by the
new. Fortunately essential information on Polykarpos’s version was included
and thus preserved in the Ḥarqlean subscriptions. Nevertheless, the
revisional relationship between Polykarpos’s original version and the update
prepared by
inscriptio) to Acts in this ms. reads: ‘The Acts of
the Twelve Holy Apostles according to the tradition of the holy Mor Aksnoyo
(ayk mašlmonutho d-qaddišo Mor Aksnoyo [
The ‘Philoxenian-Ḥarqlean problem’ arose with the editio
princeps of the Ḥarqlean in 1778–1803, which the editor J. White
considered to be the annotated re-issue of Polykarpos’s version and so
entitled it Sacrorum Evangeliorum versio syriaca
philoxeniana. Those who argued for an independent new version tried
to identify mss. of Polykarpos’s original version. J. G. Ch. Adler claimed
that ms. Florence, Bibl. Laurenziana Plut. I,40 was the earlier version; G.
Bernstein favored ms. Rome, Bibl. Angelica 74. The choice of these scholars
was directed by the absence of annotations from these codices. They are,
however, nothing other than Ḥarqlean mss. that lost their annotations in the
course of transmission (a common feature of Ḥarqlean mss.).
There is reason to assume that Polykarpos also translated some of the OT
since Mushe of Aggel mentions the Psalms alongside the NT (see above).
Moreover, a quotation of Is. 9:6 in the Milan Syro-Hexapla
is attributed to the version, ‘which was translated through the care of the
holy Philoxenos’. Ceriani edited and identified as possibly ‘Philoxenian’ a
fragmentary version of Isaiah (preserved in ms. Brit. Libr. Add. 17,106),
which is translated from Greek, but agrees with neither the Syro-Hexapla nor
the version of