SYRIAC MANUSCRIPTS.

3. —The Karkuphensian version is a recension of the Peschito, executed towards the close of the tenth
century, by David, a Jacobite Monk, residing in the Monastery of St. Aaron, on Mount Sigara, in Mesopo-
tamia, whence the appellation (signifying mountain) is derived.

4. —The Syro-Estranghelo version is a translation of Origen^s Hexaplar Edition of the Greek Septuagint;
it was executed in the former part of the seventh century, and corresponds exactly with the text of the
Septuagint. A manuscript of this version is in the Ambrosian library at Milan, containing the latter half of
the Old Testament, and which is stated by a subscription to have been copied from the exemplar corrected by
Eusebius and Pamphilus from the library of Origen, which was deposited in the library of Csesarea.

5. —The PaljEstino-Syriac version is written in the Chaldaic dialect of Jerusalem, and is supposed tohave
been translated from the Greek in Palestine; a manuscript of this version, written in the eleventh century
at Antioch, is in the Vatican. Some other Syriac versions of less note are described by Masch.1

The early manuscripts of the Syrians (previous to the year a.d. 800) were written in the character
termed Estranghelo, being in general thick and massive, with the letters riot joined together: it was also used
for monumental inscriptions, and for titles and headings in manuscripts, as a kind of majuscule. Aboutthe year
900,, however, a new character, and more cursive, convenient, and elegant, was invented by the Nestorians.

The most celebrated of all the ancient Syriac manuscripts is that of the Four Gospels, preserved in the
Medici-Laurentian library at Florence, written in the year 586, by Rabula, a scribe, in the monastery of
St. John, in Zagba, a city of Mesopotamia,2 and fully described by Assemanus,8 who published the illuminations,
with which it is elegantly ornamented, in twenty-six plates, the figures in which vary from one to seven inches
in height. The plates were republished by Biscionius ;4 and D'Agincourt has also given a fac-simile of one of
the drawings, with details of some of the others, in the twenty-seventh plate of the division of his great work
devoted to Painting. He refers it, however, to the fourth century. This is so important a manuscript in
respect to the history of the arts of illumination and design in the East, that a short detail respecting it will
not be out of place. The first illumination represents Christ and the twelve Apostles seated in a circle, with
three lamps burning beneath a wide arch, supported by two plain columns, with foliated capitals, and with two
birds at the top. The second illumination represents the Virgin and Child standing within a double arch, the
columns supporting which are tessellated, and the upper arch with the several rows of zigzags, and peacocks
standing at the top. The third represents Eusebius and Ammonius standing beneath a kind of tent-like
canopy, supported by three columns, with undulated ornaments, two peacocks with expanded tails standing
at the top. The nineteen following plates are occupied by the tables of the Eusebian Canons, arranged in
columns between pillars supporting round arches, generally inclosed between larger and more ornamented
columns supporting a large rounded arch, on the outsides of which are represented various groups of figures
illustrating scriptural texts, plants and birds. In some of these plates, however, (as Plate 8) the smaller
arches are of the horse-shoe character. The capitals are for the most part foliated, but in one or two they
are composed of two human faces, and in a few of birds' heads. The arches as well as the columns by which
they are supported, are ornamented with chevrons, lozenges, nebules, quaterfoils, zigzags, fiowers, fruit, birds, &c.
many of which singularly resemble those found in the early Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, especially inthecolumns
supporting the Eusebian Canonsin the Purple Latin Gospels of the British Museum, (MS. reg. 1 E. 6) illustrated
in one of the Plates of this Work. There is, however, none of tJw singular interlacing of tJw patterns so
characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon and Irish manuscripts.5 The twenty-third plate represents the Crucifixion
of Christ and the two thieves; our Saviour being clothed in a long loose shirt, reaching from the neck to the
feet, with a slit on each side for the arms, and one in front; whereas, the thieves have only a short garment

1 The preceding account of the Syriac versions is abridged from
Horne's Introduction, vol. ii., in the second portion of which volume
(Part I., ch. i., sect. 5, § 3), will be found a list of the chief printed
editions of the Syriac Scriptures.

2 Sir F. Madden (Introd. to Shaw's illuminated ornaments), described
a manuscript, agreeing in these particulars, as preserved in the Imperial
iibrary at Vienna; but as he refers to Biscionius, I presumeitis to the
Florence manuscript that he alludes.

3 Biblioth. Med. Laurent. et Palat. Cod. MSS. Orient. fol. 1742.

4 Cat. Hebr. MSS. in Med. Libr. 1752, fol.

5 T mention this more particularly, because it was overlooked by
the antiquarian writer Ledwich, who, from an examination of the
details of this Syrian manuscript, was led to consider (Archaeologia,
vol. 8, p. 170) that the Anglo-Saxons received their ornamental designs
from the East, as exhibited in the sacred Ciboria of the Eastern

2

churches, and who considered that all the columns and arches with
their ornaments, represented in this manuscript, were evidently copied
from Ciboria, whereas the manuscript itself bears sufficient evidence
in its reprtsentations of buildings (as the tomb of Our Saviour, and
some others figured at the sides of the Eusebian tables,) that the former
were designed from architectural patterns, as we find the doorways of
the buildings with a rounded arch at the top, supported by side
columns; indeed Ledwich even asserts that in the second illumination
of this manuscript, the Virgin and Child are placed under a Ciborium,
supported by four pillars, but an inspection of Assemani's plate (not
that of Ledwich, which quite metamorphoses the structure,) proves
that the columns are architectural, and that the ornamental arch is
but a fanciful design, which is easily convertible into a Gothic-ogee
arch with crockets and finial!