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F.C. BURKITT

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THE SYRIAC FORKS OF
NEW TESTAMENT PROPER NAMES

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3S2545

THE BRITISH ACADEMY

The Syriac Forms of

New

Testament Proper Names

F.

C/Burkitt

Fellow of the Academy

[Frovi the Proceedings of the Bntish Academy,

London
Published for the British Academy

By Henry Frowde, Oxford

Amen Comer,
Price

Two

University Press

E.G.

Shillings net

VoL F]

The
Dolman.

following works are quoted by an abbreviated

G.

Dalman, Grammatik

title.

des Jlidisch-Palastinischen Ara-

maisch (Leipzig, 1894).

GwiUiam.

G.

1901).

H. Gwilliam, Tetra-evangelium sanctum (Oxford,

[The number after Gwilliam signifies a Syriac MS., not

the page of his book.]

Itinera Sancta.

Vol. xxxviii of the Vienna Corpus

edited by P.

Geyer

Neubajier.A. Neubader,

0^. P.

Script. Eccl. Lat.,

(1898).

La Geographic du Talmud

(Paris, 1868).

de Lagaude, Onomastica Sacra (Gottingen, 1887), quoted

by the marginal pagination.

Mn\/ :

THE SYRIAC FORMS OF

NEW TESTAMENT PROPER NAMES
By

F.

C.^BURKITT

FKLLOW OF THE ACADEMY

Read January

The

24,

1912

subject I have chosen for this Paper sounds,

may not be out

fear, rather

dry and technical, so that

it

claiming that

one element of general interest.

it

presents

of place to begin by

The

Pilgrim from Palestine, with his staff and his scallop-shell and his
tales of the

Holy Land,

the middle ages

it will

is

be

one of the most picturesque figures of

my

task this afternoon to introduce you

any record.

to the earliest of that band, the earliest that has left

His

tale

is

told in a dead language,

correct,

is

and perhaps not

all his

archaeology

but he deserves to be heard with the respect due to

a pioneer.

The New Testament is a collection

of Greek writings, and

the last quarter of the second century a.

d.

that there

is

it is

not

till

any evidence

But in the period between

it into other tongues.
170 and 200 the Gospels, Acts, and Pauline Epistles were translated
into Latin in the West, at Rome or Carthage, and into Syriac in the
of efforts to translate

East, at Edessa in the Euphrates Valley.

The translation of the New
Testament into Latin presented no special difficulty, and least of all
in the proper names.
There is, of course, a right way and a wrong,
as those know who have read Professor Housman's amusing article

number of the Journal of Philology on Greek Nouns in

But the points raised are, after all, of subsidiary
interest.
The Latin translator had merely to give the Latin letter
which custom and authority prescribed as equivalent to the Greek
letter.
He had no need to be wise above that which had been
written it is a pretty question whether we ought to write Pharao
in the last

Latin Poetry ^

worth while recording the fact that the oldest Christian MS!S. support
Housman's general couclueious, e. g. k has ' Heroden ', and the
W'iirzburg I'alinipsest in Jeremiah xiii lias ' Eufruten '.
^

It is

Professor

I'-l

imo

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

or Farao^ but all that either form

of

Egypt

The
Syriac,

tells

us

that the

is

of the king

title

spelt 4>(\pAa) in Greek.

is

translator from Greek into Syriac

the former

common

Semitic language, the

first

is

in a very different case.

speech of the Euphrates Valley,

is

Like Hebrew, many

cousin of Hebrew.

of the vowels do not appear in writing, and those that are written
are given in a notation that, according to our ideas,

imperfect.

On

the other hand,

in the sibilants,

many

which disappear

is

singularly

distinctions are made, especially

and

in the Greek,

(as in

Hebrew)

there are four true guttural sounds which are not represented in

Greek at

all.

enough to transliterate true Greek Proper Names

They look indeed rather clumsy, and without the
insertion of vowel signs the transliterations are often ambiguous^.
The real difficulty and the real interest arises when, as so often
It

into

is

Syriac.

the

in

easy

New

Testament, the Proper

Name

the Greek

in

itself

is

Greek is a poor
language for such a purpose, and the Semitic words lose in transliteration many of their most striking characteristics. The Patriarchs
are shorn of their gutturals 'Abraham^ Yishdk, and Ydakob become
ABpAAM, IcAAK, and IakcoB, and there is nothing to tell the reader
a transliteration or adaption of a Semitic word.

that Abraham's h

while Jacob's

is

is

an English

7i,

the peculiar Semitic

Isaac's
'^ain.

is

(or very nearly),

Teh

Moreover, without private

the retranslator from Greek into a Semitic language

would not know where to put the gutturals in as a matter of fact,
the h in A^paa^i comes between the second and third a, the ^ in lo-aoK
comes instead of the first a, and the
in IaKco/3 comes between the
a and the k.
These difficulties lie in the nature of the languages and confront
a translator as soon as he sets about his task. When therefore we
find that the older Syriac Versions, speaking generally, do not simply
transliterate the New Testament Proper Names, but give the proper
Semitic equivalent, we are obviously in the presence of a learned
achievement, of a work of Biblical learning which demands elucidation
and explanation.
How did the Syriac translator come by his
information,

information

few words

may

here be said on the Syriac Versions of which

account will be taken here.

^

The commemoration

The

Syriac Vulgate,

commonly

of a certain AovXt] at Nicomedia on

by Lietzmann from the ancient Syriac Martyrology as

quite so bad in Syriac letters
!

dvl's

March 25
'.

is

called
given

It doesn't look

NEW TESTAMENT NAMES

SYRIAC FORMS OF

the Peshitta, comprises the greater part of the Old and

ments.

It

New

Testa-

preserved with a surprising absence of variation in

is

many MSS., some of which

are as old as the fifth century.

The

Canonical Books of the Old Testament were translated originally

direct from the

Hebrew, probably by Jews rather than Christians

but certain books, notably that of Isaiah, seem to have been revised
from the Greek Bible. The so-called ' Apocrypha \ such as the Book
The text of
of Wisdom, must have been translated from the Greek.

New Testament

the Peshitta in the

is

it is now
made by Rabbula, Bishop

also a revision

generally recognized that this revision was

of Edessa from 411 to 435.

No MS.

of the Acts or Pauline Epistles

previous to this revision survives, but two

MSS. of

the Gospels are

known, Cureton's MS. and the Sinai Palimpsest, which represent the
texts current before Rabbula. Besides these MSS. we have the scanty
remains of Syriac literature earlier than the
the

fifth

century, notably

and Ephraim (d. 373 a.d.).

large mass of evidence tends to shew that the form in which
works

of Aphraates (345 a.d.)

the Gospel generally circulated

among

Syriac-speaking Christians

Rabbula was not the Four separate Gospels, but

Tatian's Diatessaron this work survives in a late Arabic translation,
but the Syriac text from which this Arabic translation was made
had been assimilated wholesale to the Peshitta. In any case, the
Arabic cannot be depended on for details connected with the spelling
before the time of

of Proper Names.

Our

three chief authorities, therefore, are the Sinai Palimpsest (S),

A later Syriac
and the Peshitta (P).
New Testament not comprised in the
Peshitta (viz. 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and the Apocalypse),
made in the sixth century for Philoxenus of Mabbogh, is cited as
Many of the Proper Names in the Gospels are mentioned by
(p.
Aphraates, whose works include a Homily on the Gospel Genealogies

the Curetonian

MS.

(C),

version of the parts of the

his evidence,

where necessary,

is

quoted as A.

the most part Aphraates used the Diatessaron

altered.

of 1881,

is

clear that for

^.

many ways drastic and

Proper Names Avere very little

Rabbula"'s revision of the text was

thorough-going, but fortunately the

It

in

His procedure was not unlike that of the English Revisers

also left the Proper Names much as they were, though

who

made alterations in the direction of conformity

The proof of the above statement lies in the very

other respects they

in

to the Greek.
'

The number

(1907).

after

is

the page in Patrologia Syriaca, vol.

(1894)^ vol.

ii

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

numerous agi'eements of S, C, and P, and the very few cases of actual

For instance, the final h in 'Beelzebub' is attested by no
Greek MS., so far as I know, but Rabbula retains it, following both
5 and C, and also A 714.
The agreement between S, C, and P in the Gospels is the justifi-

difference.

cation for using

in the rest of the

It should, of course,

us.

fail

ment of

with S

is

New

Testament, whei'e S and

be remarked that the definite agree-

Names

naturally confined to those Proper

which are transmitted without variant

the Greek.

in

Naturally

may happen that there is a variant in a name, and in such cases

and S C are sometimes found on opposite sides, e. g. in Joh 28
S C support Bethabara \ while P supports Bethany \
But such
it

'

'

and do not seriously

cases are comparatively rare,

the general faithfulness of

call in

question

Old Syriac

to the nomenclature of the

Version.

glance at S

translator of the
been, was

Names,

C and P shews that the general practice of the

New Testament into Syriac, whoever he may have

to give the

Old Testament equivalent

as far as this could

for

A discussion

be done.

the Proper

of this part of

the subject will be found in Evangelion da-Mepharreshcf vol.

and

pp. 201-205,

need not repeat

dependence of the Syriac

ii,

do not think the

this respect upon

here, as I

it

New Testament

in

the Syriac Old Testament has ever been seriously challenged.

The

evidence forces us, in fact, to regard the Old Testament Peshitta

as

older

than

the

Syriac

New

Testament, and as having been

familiar to the translator of the latter.

This at once accounts for a large number of peculiar forms, the

origin of which does not here concern us, as

it is sufficient

Thus

they were taken from the Old Testament.

|Vn^

literated

It is

P*i?.

but
the

it

Seliijon,

difficult

though the Greek

to see

how

is 2toji'

'

to say that

Zion

'

trans-

is

and the Hebrew

the Syriac form can have arisen,

throws no direct light upon the geographical knowledge of

New Testament

translator, as

the Old Testament in Syriac

Some

no doubt

of the greater Geographical names

derived from

it

was taken direct from

^.

common knowledge and

may

very well have been

names such as D^B^'llfc^

Urishlevi for Jerusalem, or ^1(13 n*i Beth Nahrln for Mesopotamia.
What needs investigation are the rarer names, names of persons that
^

n*if

(region)

'

dry land

'

it is,

'

is

use,

regularly rendered in the Peshitta by r<l*ct3^

therefore, probable that

or some such signification.

|Vir

'

thirsty

was underatood to mean Dry Tor,

SYRIAC FORMS OF

NEW TESTAMENT NAMES

do not appear to have been familiar to Syriac-speaking folk, and

names of places for which v.e can hardly suppose that the natives
of Edessa, or even of Antioch, could have had special appellations.

Once more we may remind ourselves of the nature of the processes

gone through before a New Testament Semitic Proper Name appears
in Syriac.
It has been transliterated from Hebrew or Aramaic into
Greek letters: the Syriac translator then takes this Greek transliteration,

and either

transliterates it into Syriac letters, or decides

on an appropriate Syriac

The

equivalent.

latter process

historical information

about the subject

is

not

may aifbrd us
the
New
Testament,
matter of

transliteration, but really a kind of translation

it

but should not be used as a textual 'variant'. This simple caution

The name
is not always remembered, as an example will make clear.
Caiaphas (Katti^as- or Koi(/)a?) is transliterated XS\'^ ; Cephas (Ki](pa'i\

At first sight it seems irregular that

is ^<SS^.
the Syriac equivalent to K?;0as should begin with 5 instead of p.
But what we have to recognize is that (<(^^ is not a transliteration
on the other hand,

but the Syriac for 'stone': the translator, or possibly Syriac

Church custom, recognized that S. Peter's name was Shnon Stone,
and they called him, where necessary, by this appellative ^

at

all,

When
*

Westcott and Hort discuss the breathings to be assigned

such as AA^atos, they talk about

New Testament Proper Names

to

It is one of the chief

the authority of the Syriac ' (Introd., 408).
what exactly the 'authority' of

objects of this Paper to find out in

the Syriac consists.

Is

it, Ave

ask, a real

and continuous Palestinian

merely an achievement of learning, meritorious and

but not really authoritative? What had the
indeed,
interesting
Syriac translator to go by, when the Old Testament failed him, and
tradition, or

is it

when the context did not suggest (as it did in the case of S. Peter's
name) a practically certain solution ?
Now it is true that there are a number of excellent transliterations
or identifications, whichever we like to call them, to be found in the
Syriac versions. Simon the Cananaean (Kavavalo'i) is rendered J<Oip,
and so is properly distinguished from the Canaanite woman (Xavarala),

who is Xn^iViD. Tabitha and Talitlia are sadly confused in Latin

in the Syriac texts they are properly distinguished and
MSS.
Pharisees
intelligently spelt. Words referring to Jewish Parties, &c.
:

(Perishe), Sadducees (Zaddhkat/e), Osanna (Oshand), Phylacteries

{Tephille),
are given a Syriac dress that is near enough to the

It

is

the same in Arabic, wliere S. Peter

is

commonly called ^jj*i

(or ^L,..)

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

current Jewish technical term to suggest some knowledge of Jewish

Of

conditions.
XoT;Ca[s]

personal

the

\ i<y^^

names,

for Sapphira,

Saturday's child) for Barsabbas

(i. e.

for

ppl

X^N

i:i for

Annas,

for

11

nf)

for

are all well spelt,

^,

5^113

Barabbas % i^^^

Thaddaeus and N7'2J^ {Dalman 124) for 2tAa? are recognized as

Semitic names and spelt accordingly it may be remarked in passing
that the name of Simon Magus is spelt jlD^D {Simon) in Syriac, as
distinguished from Simon Peter and Simon the Tanner, who are given
the same name as Simeon (jlS^^tJ^ Shhndn) the Patriarch.
As is well known, the Syriac New Testament translates Xptcrro's by
Msh'tJia, i.e. Messiah', wherever it occurs. 'iTjo-oi;? becomes ^IJi^* (pronounced Yeshu and Isho'), which is the later Hebrew form of Joshua.
The Peshitta always represents J^I^J^IH* by yit5^\ e.g. in Josh i 1, and
it was no doubt the Syriac form of the name Joshua that determined
:

'

name

the spelling of the

It

may

for Jesus

among

Syriac-speaking Christians.

here be mentioned that the controversial works of

now being

Syrus,

edited by

my friend

Mr. C.

W.

Ephraim

Mitchell for the Text

and Translation Society from a palimpsest in the British Museum,

will shew that the Syriac-speaking Marcionites were not similarly
influenced by the Old Testament, and that they transliterated 'Irjo-oOiby )0\

Of the place-names

in Syriac,

Tnil

for XopaC^tv agrees with the

Talmudic spelling ; N^lS H^l {Beth Phagge) for Br]6^ayi] is at least

probable; and X1*X D^l {Beth Sayyada) for hr^daaihav, though
otherwise unattested, is possible. Other spellings, such as K*i'^^^ for
'Arabia', which at first sight might seem inappropriate, are to be
explained from the fact that such Greek words are not representations
of Semitic names at all, but new Greek appellations. The "Apa^e? of
Acts ii 11 are properly rendered by X^l'lV but 'Apa/3ta is a mere
geographical expression, invented by the Greeks and Romans, which
is wisely transliterated by the Peshitta in Gal i 17, iv 25 without
S. Paul never meant us to infer that he passed
Semitic gutturals
;

three years

among

the Bedouins.

All these Syriac transliterations are intelligent,

really striking.

At

the same time

fairly straightforward
^

Lk

vSalih

viii 3.

The name

it

will

and a few of them

be noticed that they are

the best of them, such as those for Xopa^eiV

is

certified as

Nabatean by an inscription at Madaiii

see Expositor (5th Ser.) for February 1899, p. 121.

The same patronymic was borne by tlie well-known Kabbi Hlya b. Abba.
The name of Mr. Sattiirday Davenant may occur to some English readers.
More antique and oriental is Barhabbeshabba (i. e. Sunday's child), one of the
martyrs commemorated in the ancient Syriac Kalendar of 411.
'

NEW TESTAMENT NAMES

SYRIAC FORMS OF

and XovCas, simply follow the most ordinary rules of transliteration.

We now have to consider one or two that I venture to characterize
as strikingly bad.

The

impression

first

of the modern scholar, accustomed to the

methods of the Syro-Hexaplar and Harclean

with respect

all

i.

e. all

words containing

assumes that the Syriac word

of the Greek

is

to regard

Syriac transliterations that contain Semitic gutturals

or Semitic sibilants,
this

versions,

the case

is

is

meant

quite different

or

i?,

or

ISC

K'.

But

for a real transliteration

when there has been an

attempt to find a Syriac equivalent for the Greek word. The clearest
instance of what I mean is to be found in the Philoxenian (and
Harclean) rendering of Abaddon in

Apoc

word means 'destroying""

that the Old Testament word

Here we

ix 11.

are definitely

told that the

in Greek, so that it

is

certain

pi^X

But the

Syriac equivalent

is

11^^,

of rC'Axo.'ui^- 'servitude'.

translator''s

i.

e.

is

intended.

quite

the translator has used the abs. sing,

This

is

universally recognized as being

blunder and nothing more.

At

the same time

it

leads

us to infer that the translator could have had no contact with any

about the Jewish background to this Apocalypse.

But what Abaddon proves about the Apocalypse, Jairus proves
The name 'Ide tpos occurs in the Greek
for the Gospel in Syriac.

real tradition

Bible in Esth ii 5, where we read of Maphoyjcdo^ 6 tov 'la^ipov. When

we look the passage up in the original Hebrew we find that Mordecai

was the son of Jair (TK*).

This evidence

is

really sufficient to

name in the Gospel story

thought appropriate
name
Any

establish both the original form of the

and

also its appropriateness there.

for an Israelite in

late

and popular book

like

Esther might be

expected to occur as the name of a personage mentioned in the

Gospels ^. Jairus (Mk v 22, Lk viii 41 ) should therefore have been

But the name only occurs in the nominative,

1*X^ in the Syriac.
and the translator seems to have thought that the final -os was part
of the root, and so he turns 'Idetpos into K^'IXV ^, as if it were one
It is a bad blunder, as
of those Jewish names beginning with ATV.
bad as turning Abaddon into 'servitude': the value of it for us is to
make it unlikely that the Syriac translator of the Gospels was in
touch with any real historical tradition about the names that occur
in the course of the narrative.
'

Jairus
^^'e

'

does not stand alone.

may also record

BJ ii 19.

It

would, indeed, be unfair to lay

the existence of Eleazar

b.

Jair

('leipoii),

mentioned by

.fosephus
2

Written T.^icu Lk

viii

41 in S, a spelling also found in Gwilliam's 36 (Mk).

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

much

very

(Lk

stress

on certain Names

31 S P), where, no doubt,

iii

nni^5

in the Genealogies, such as XfllOD

S.

Luke's MaTraOd was meant for

In some of these obscure names the irregular spelling of the

due to a know-

Syriac, particularly as preserved in S, appears to be

ledge that the Greek spelling itself was quite irregular

JCAa and A=3a^

Lk

in

iii

82 S

for

while S has

course of Abia'' in

Lk

is

D^^N

in

agreement with the Old Latin

we are dealing with trans-

In such cases as these

and at the same time the

an authority for the spelling of the

rather than identifications,

literations

for the nonce

Syriac becomes
Greek word from which

More

agreement with the Greek and with

spelt N^lIlX in the Peshitta, in

1 Chr xxiv 10,
MSS. e and I*.

instances are

Boaz and Obed, corresponding,

The

no doubt, to Booc and IooBhA.

it

is

derived.

V'H^ for NaCv (Lk vii 11) and

S (Matt), pDn:i P (Matt, Mk), for reear^fiavei
xiv 32) ^
Whatever view may be held about the

significant than these are

:ilbDn:i

S (Mk),

^iaOi:;

(Matt xxvi 36, Mk

original meaning and spelling of these obscure names, it is clear that
the Syriac translator had no private information, and that he guessed,
and guessed badly, from the Greek letters in his exemplar.
Nain ',
if it be connected with the place quoted in Nenhauer 188, ought
to have an ^ain in it (D*S?i), and the latter part of Gethsemane is
connected with the Hebrew for oil, and should have a tJ^, not a D
'

'

{see

Dalman

152).

'

Gennesaret

""

or *Gennesar', again,

'

is

"IDJJ in

theTalmudic form is *nDiyjl, and it is natural to suppose that

the Syriac translator had derived his spelling of the name from

Syriac
if

living tradition

Of

it

names

the

(2 Cor xi 32)

is

would have included a o between the n and the

iu

the Acts and Epistles,

a very poor transliteration

^.

s.

Qoa.j^'ir<' for 'ApeVas

The name

of the

Ethnarch must have been nn^lH, later spelt in Syriac AxircU*

(Wright, CBM 704 b), corresponding to the well-known Arabic
names Haritha or el-Hdrith. In Acts ix 35 it is odd to find XJ11D
put for Tov ^ap&va (instead of N311K^), side by side with 117 for
'Ptolemais' becomes "ID^ and 'Joppa' NSV, but 'Tarsus'
Ai;88a.
is merely transliterated D1D"lD
possibly the pride of Roman citizen:

ship had

name

its

made Tarsus
T'lD

on

its

it had spelt
'Gaza' (XTJ) and 'Azotus' (DItDlTX)

forget that in the Persian period

coins.

have Greek, not Semitic, forms of their names.

I

have

left

interesting

out of consideration hitherto a number of the most

and controversial proper names

The

oldest transmitted pronuuciation

'Hie

Armenian of Ephraim' has

is

in the Syriac

New Testa-

Gadscman (see Gwilliam, p. 171, note).

no sign of an initial guttural.

Aret, with

NEW TESTAMENT NAMES

SYRIAC FORMS OF

ment, because we ought to examine them with reasonable ideas of the

kind of rules or information from which the Syriac translator worked.

So

far as

we have gone,

venture to think we have found nothing

The

pointing to a special or extraordinary knowledge.

translator

Old Testament in Syriac, and he has a good

knowledge of ordinary geography, which he shews by giving the
native names of the coast towns.
But he does not always recognize
Semitic names in their Greek dress, and there is no sign that he is
specially familiar with the towns of Judaea or Galilee, or with the
forms of Jewish names apart from those in the Old Testament.
I begin with the name Caiaphas, about the spelling of which
the 'authority of the Syriac' has frequently been invoked^. This
familiar with the

is

name

spelt

is

Josephus {Ant.

KaiacJjac

in

xviii 2),

but

Syriac has ^{S^'P, and this

most Greek MSS.

D
is

in

agreement with

and the Latins have

KAi(t)Ac.

The

often supposed to be a definite pro-

nouncement in favom" of the first over the second Greek reading.

it is, of course, an indication of the way the Syriac
I doubt this
translator thought the word was spelt in Palestinian Aramaic, but
I do not think it gives us any information of the way the word was
spelt in the Greek MS. from which the Syriac was translated.
The
Syriac translator thought Bridcraibd (or Brjda-aLhdv) meant Fisherman's
Town Avell and good. But if he turns Br^Ocraibd into Beth Sayyaddy
:

'

'

as he does,

it

is

fairly obvious that

his

Kayydpha may stand

for

Kat(^as as Avell as Katd'/m?.

A somewhat

similar conclusion appears to

me

to be indicated in

the case of Bethabara and the Gergesenes, a couple of names which are
very important in this connexion, as the forms found in the Old Syriac

MSS. have been supposed to demonstrate that the Old Syriac Version
itself was made later than Origen and under the influence of his
exegesis

name

'

^.

the people

name

been supposed that Origen himself introduced the

It has

Gergesenes

'

(for

Gadarenes or Gerasenes) as the name of

the Demoniac was healed, and also the

among whom

Bethany beyond Jordan, where John was

baptizing.
Consequently, when we find X*D)l1i in Mk v 1 S and
N"1^y n^i in Joh i 28 S C, it is a plausible inference that the Old
Syriac reading is founded upon Origen's conjectures ^.
'

Bethabara

See

The substance

e. g.

'

for

Ency. Bihl. 172, note 1.

of the following discussion on these words

is

taken from the

present writei-'s article in the American Journal of Biblical Literature xxvii 128-133,
called ' Gergesa
a Reply '.

may

be convenient to indicate here some textual facts which are assumed

in the following discussion.
(1) On general grounds there can be little doubt
*

It

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

10

seemed at

It

Mk

first

name

a confirmation of this theory that the

V 1 was written in Syriac with a D, not with a

in

Origen had

tJ^.

not only expressed his opinion that the name of the city near which
the swine had rushed into the sea was Gergesa, rather than Gadara

he went on to identify the people with the Girgashites of

Gen XV 21. Mr. Raymond Clapp, to whom is due the credit of having
called attention to the great importance of these names for our estior Gerasa

mate of the date of the Old Syriac Version^, concludes that S^^DJIX
Mk v 1, is a simple transcript of a Greek MS.
which read Fepyearivm; a reading which was itself the result of
A little consideration will, however, shew that
Origen's conjecture.

the reading of S in

the Syriac form suggests the opposite conclusion,

tells

us

is

viz.

that

that

all

it

that the translator identified 'the countr}' of the [Gerasenes]'

For, strange to say, the Old

with 'the land of the Girgashites'.
Testament Peshitta, in Gen xv 21 and elsewhere, represents the Hebrew
^K^i'nin by ^<^D1J^^i. The reason for this is quite obscure, just as it is
quite obscure

why the

Plain of Shinar ("iV^^) should be turned in the

The

Peshitta into ^i^JD.

Sinai Palimpsest, therefore, intends us to

Mk

understand 'Girgashites' in

nounced Gargosaye

With
word

is

regard to

'

Bethabara'

in

written r<'vi^ h\i:s in

not legible in

S,

1,

and the word should be pro-

^.

Joh

28 the case

is

similar.

with the plural points

The

they are

but whether they are really absent or merely

C shews that the word was regarded

illegible in S their presence in

as plural,

and therefore

as a significant appellation (like

'

Overstrand')

the genuine reading of the Greek is

is right, viz.
Gadarenes in Matt, but ' Gerasenes in Mk and Lk. (2) In the Syriac, P has
Gadarenes everywhere C has Gadarenes in Lk (the only place where it is
extant) S has ' Gadarenes in Matt and Lk, but in Mk ' the district {x^i^a) of
the G.' is rendered 'the land of the X''DJ"lJ'.
(3) The rendering of the Diatessaron is not known from any early authority naturally Ciasca's Arabic implies
'
Gadarenes', the reading of P. (4) Syriac Versions appear to have had some
Abimelech of Gerar becomes
tendency to introduce the name Gadarene
Abimelech of i:i^^(Gen xx), and the Hagarenes of Ps Ixxxiii 6 become rtfll."l^^
that Hort's conclusion

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

These Gadarenes also meet us in 1 Chr xxvii 28 P. (5) ' Gadarenes in Matt
viii 28 S is simply a con*ect rendering of the Greek, and needs no further
explanation ; ' Gadarenes in Lk viii 26, 37 S C' may be a harmonization with
Matt, or (more likely) an assimilation to the Diatessaron. It is the reading in
Mk vis, which has escaped harmonization, that needs explaining.
'

'

* Journal
See also Baethgen's Evangelienof Biblical Literature xxvi 02-83.
fragmente (1885), p. 83.
' The dropping of the O in f<l.iaa^^^^presents no difficulty in the case of

For parallels, see Evangelion da-Mepharreshe

a MS. like S.
Matt viii 28 in the margin of the Harclean Version.

ii

40

see also

NEW TESTAMENT NAMES

SYRIAC FORMS OF

11

and not as a transliteration of a Greek word. In this interpretation

the Syriac differs from Origen, who thought that BrjOajSapa meant
o1ko9 Karaa-Kfvijs (i.e. X'^lpH n^^, from X"!^, to create!)^, while
the Syriac connects

We
the

find, then,

Girgashites

'

'

it

with irepav tov ^lopbdvov.

that the Syriac agrees with Origen in thinking of

may be

spelt in

who owned the Herd

as the people

also in identifying the place

A couple

Greek BrjOa^apa.

to go on and ask whether there

these

of identifications such as

made independently, but we have

these can hardly have been

view, that

of Swine, and

where John baptized with a spot which

any

is

common

justification for the

made

identifications were

further

by

for the first time

Origen.
Origen*'s

are found,

partly

Commentary on
is

much

S.

John, in which these identifications

a bulky work, composed partly at Alexandria, and

later at Caesarea.

In the former books, so far as they

survive, the geographical interest

absent, though there are several

is

about the Hebrew meanings of

pieces of Origen's characteristic lore

New Testament names 2.

But from Book

vi

onward,

i.e. in

the part

Mritten at Caesarea, Origen airs his knowledge of Palestine, and

is

quite ready to change the transmitted text of Scripture accordingly.

What

has happened in the interval

We could almost

have guessed,

even apart from our author's express statement, for we have

it in

our friends and contemporaries.

all

seen

Origen has been on a Pilgrimage

through the Holy Land, and he no longer needs information about

them for himself ?

as
same
time,
I
pointed
out in the Paper already referred
At the
to, Origen does not himself claim to have discovered 'Bethabara' or
Gergesa \ What he tells us is that * they say that Bethabara (ja
Brjda^apa) is shewn by the gorge of the Jordan, where they declare
Further on he mentions
that John baptized (Orig. in Joan, vi 40).
Gergesa, from which come the Girgashites (01 Fepyeo-aioi), an ancient
city by what is now called the Lake of Tiberias, by which is a steep
place close to the Lake, from which it is shewn that the Swine were
the

sites,

for has he not seen

'

'

'

cast

down by the demons

'

(Ibid, vi 41).

This

is

what he learnt when

he went on his pilgrimage, and in accordance with his geographical

information he points out that Bethany is not beyond Jordan, and
that neither Gerasa nor Gadara

The

is

situated on the Sea of Galilee.

step that Origen took was to

emend the Greek

Gospels in accordance with the local identifications.

'

See Isaiah xl 28, xliii 7

E.g. ii ^^ {Brooke 99).
I

text of the

This

also Bij^e/Stppa olnos KaraaKtvqi

OS

is

2OI55.

some-

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

12

thing more than the translator of the Syriac Version can be proved
His general aim was to find the proper Aramaic
to have done.
equivalent of the names, not to

tell

represented the Aramaic names.

Evangelist wrote 'Upoa-oXvixa or

us with what letters the Greeks

He

does not care whether the

'Upova-aXrifi

the place meant

No

is

what

countrymen called Urishlem, and

is implied in Acts xxi 7, where for KarrjvTria-aixev eh nroAe/xat8a
the Syriac has we came to Acre \ And if our translator was persuaded that the x^P" ^wy Tepaarfvwv was the land of the Girgashites
he writes

his

it

so.

various

reading

'

do not think he would scruple to write it so.

The view I am here advancing is that the agreement of the Old
Syriac with Origen about the place-names Bethabara and Girgashites
or Gergesenes comes not from the Old Syriac following Origen, but

from both the Old Syriac and Origen following local identifications.
I venture to think I have proved this conclusion not to be excluded
I have now to try and shew that it is not too
by the evidence.

and improbable a theory to be

artificial

In the

first place, it

seems to

me

fair to

believed.

urge that any theory which

makes the Old Syriac Version dependent upon Origen is in itself

Apart from the evidence afforded, or seemed to be
improbable.

by these few place-names, the latest date assigned to the

Old Syriac Version, as it stands in the Sinai Palimpsest, is about
A. D. 200, more than a generation before Origen's commentary was

afforded,

In style, in manner, in tone,

written.

it

is

idiomatically Semitic,

removed both from Origen's textual accuracy and his fanciful

Further, the agreement with Origen is confined to
allegorizing.
geographical identifications; when it comes to the etymology of
and

far

Semitic names there

is

a great difference.

and

Origen was not really

his ear for Semitic sounds seems to have

a profound linguist,
been no better than that of most European tourists. The Syriac
translator on the other hand was thoroughly skilled in Aramaic, his
native language, and he discriminated between sounds which Origen
confused. Palestinian Aramaic is, of course, different from the Syriac
of Edessa, and the transcription of sounds in any language is a delicate
matter, but the two dialects have the same gutturals and the same

and to a Semite they are not easily interchanged.

of Origen and the Syriac is best represented by
a Table the right-hand column gives the transmitted Syriac text,
while the middle column gives Origen's etymologies together with
a conjectural restoration of the Semitic words intended by him.

sibilants,

The independence
:

NEW TESTAMENT NAMES

SYRIAC FORMS OF
Bethabara

Origen.

St/riac.

oIkos KaTaaKevijs (vi 40)

Nlli? D^i

Bethania

oIkos viraKoris (vi 40)

Bethpliage

N^^i? Jl^^

(nayovojv (x 30)

oIko!,'

Jordan

Kard^aaL's avrutv

(vi

t^^S

{Brooke, Fr. 76)

6<^0aA)ix6s ^ao-dvoi;

p
Salim

no

pj;

suffix)

[1i ]^V

(S)

j^i?

(C)

JV

avTos 6 ava^aivoiv (Ibid.)

rhv

H^^

pi*lV

42)
(i.e.

Acnon

13

DvtJ^

^ (?)

are themselves in sad need of elucidation.

Origen''s explanations

Either he misheard certain Aramaic names, or he only heard them

from Greek-speaking persons, and himself gave them his fantastic

But

meanings.

if

Origen were an authority at

translator, 1 cannot see

why he should be

all

for the Syriac

trusted for place-identifi-

cations and deserted for derivations. Origen''s derivation for

is

especially interesting, for it

is

definitely

Aramaic, yet

Bethphage

it is

different

from that adopted by the Syriac Version.

The

general

to

some

excite

inference

draw

of place-names in

identification

among

interest

mainly a Greek-speaking

body,

is

the

that by

time

Origen''s

the

had already begun

Gospels

Palestinian Christians, themselves

not scientifically trained in the

At any rate, I
Aramaic pronunciation or grammar.
venture to claim that the theory which makes the Syriac Versions
depend upon Origen breaks down under investigation, and with it
the theory that these Versions in any surviving form are later than
niceties of

Origen breaks down

The name

also.

of Bethpliage, as already remarked,

rd^^ ^xs

the same as in the Talmud,

of Unripe Figs', and this

aiayovoyv

us

it

(i.e.

r<^^ iuia

in the

in Greek, so

Onomastka)

Semitic sounds.
little dispute,

a known

is

in

spelt in the Syriac

Aramaic the Place

'

a far more likely derivation than oikos

'Place of Cheeks'), which

is

what Origen

But Origen does not propose to change the

means.

B-qd(t)ayi'i

is

means

most

upon a mere error of the ear for

Bethphage there can be
may be difficult to locate. It was

identification of

though the exact site

and Origen tells us it was a

place,

spelling of

likely his fantastic explanation (repeated

rests ultimately

About the

tells

t6t:o's te,vart/<os,

which looks

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

14
as

if

he was really indebted to Jewish lore for his information, as the

Bethphage in the Talmud are connected with the virtual

notices of

inclusion of the place in the

The

identification of

Holy City

Bethany

is

for certain purposes

less certain,

^.

and therefore there

is

more doubt about the right pronunciation of the word. The Syriac
has X*jy n^i, and this spelling also appears to underlie Origen's oTko?
vTTaKorjs.
On the other hand, no place of this name is mentioned by
is mention of a place called ^^n H^i
Bethany
\ The question is complicated
which may be near the site of
by the gloss ^^^avla' oikoj So'^tj? {OS ITS-^, 182^4, I887J, which

Jewish authorities, while there

'

seems to indicate that a Christian tradition once existed that equated

Bethany with [Dj'ilK H^l, another spelling of ^^n H^l

'

do not think we are in a position to solve the question. Bethany

if it really was
was, no doubt, a small and unimportant hamlet
was
destroyed three
is
that
it
about
it
Beth Hini, then what we know
likely all local
most
years before Jerusalem was taken by Titus ^ and
I

knowledge of the place disappeared. When in the fourth century the

victorious Christians built a great church over the reputed grave of

name Bethany, having no real root in the soil, withered

The Lady Etheria, in the fifth century, knows of Bethania

Lazarus, the

away.

from her Bible, but on the spot she

and El-'Azarlyeh
that the

it is

finds the place called

called to this day.

Lazarium,

venture to think, therefore,

Christian archaeologists had nothing to go on but the

first

letters of BhS-ania.

It

is

hardly surprising that, with the analogy of

Anathoth to help them, they should have thought that an represented

yi rather than ^n. And, after all, they may be right in not connecting the New Testament Br]davia with the Talmudic Beth-Hini.
If the writer of the Second Gospel was really a Jerusalemite he must
have known the true pronunciation of the name.
not explain to us the initial consonant of ania
be

or

or

or

5?.

following vowel really

have been

if

*i^n

But the Gospel

was a and not
'

H^l was

'

is
' i
'

Greek writing does

:

it

may

equally well

good evidence that the

or ai ', as it ought to
'

In short, the evidence suggests

intended.

that the Syriac translator and the earliest Christian identificators

(represented by the Onomustka) had no real traditional evidence to go

upon

at the

same time

it is

pronunciation they suggest

^

'

is

equally insufficient to prove that the

wrong ^.

See the discussion iu Neubauer 147

ft'.

For ""ilK nn see Tosifta, Shebiith 7

Baba Mezia 88 a.
Dalman 143 suggests that the name of
;

for B6^a

^3NT IT'a

was originally nj3n n'3

D^JIN see Isaiah xl 20.

SYRIAC FORMS OF
The

NEW TESTAMENT NAMES

spelling of four other place-names in the Syriac Gospels raise

These are Gennesareth, Nazarethy

considerations of general interest.

Cana of

Galilee

Gennesareth

name

15

is

and Bethesda.
a fertile district in Galilee that sometimes gives

to the Sea of Tiberias.

and

vTqaapiO,

It

but our Syriac

Tivvr]ijap,

has -eth or

-et

Our Jewish

at the end of the word

have *lDii without

true Old Latin MS.

texts

No

variation, vocalized Genesar in the Peshitta.

its

Yn-

variously spelt revvqaapir^

is

^.

authorities give us "iDl^i in the

Talmud, "iDOi

the

in

Targums^, while Josephus and

The

vindicated as correct for an Aramaic

Syriac spelling, therefore,

is

Maccabees

But when we ask what

document.

(xi

67) have

Tevvrjcrdp.

the genuine spelling in the

is

Gennesaret is so familiar
Greek Gospels, the answer is not so easy.
a word to us, that we realize with difficulty that it is confined to the
non-western text of the Synoptic Gospels. For that very reason it is
probably genuine there. The odd thing about the matter is that it
is the Western authorities, including the Old Latin, that present
the spelling which seems to be influenced either by local knowledge
It looks as if the longer form had
or knowledge of Josephus.
altogether disappeared for a time from the text of the Gospels and
'

'

then been reintroduced, possibly by Origen.

would

It

satisfy

the general literary conditions

Mark

that Gennesar^^ belonged originally to

belonging to the Evangelist

who owes

alone

if

we supposed

a peculiar

form

On

least to literary tradition.

Gennesar

by
Harmonistic
the more literary Evangelists Luke and Matthew.
corruption would then cause the rarer form Gennesaret to drop out
of Mark, while at a later date it was re-introduced into the Greek
But I cannot say that the textual evidence
text of all three Gospels.
at all points directly to the longer form being more characteristic of
Dalmanutha"* (Mk viii 10) is
Mark than of the other Evangelists.
not a real parallel, for that word never found any acceptance in the
other Gospels. A nearer parallel may possibly be found in Nazareth \
this hypothesis Mark''s

'

Gennesaret

'

was changed to

'

'

"*

'

'

'

The name Nazareth

problem.

is

connected with more than one insoluble

In the Greek Gospels the name

sometimes Na^apeV, while in Matt

*

Mkvi53

The et
* e<
^

is

is

not really an exception

wanted to begin

iv 13,

it lias

ver. 54, so that the

is

spelt sometimes Na^ape'^,

Lk

iv

6 we find Na^apd in

gennezalretcumexis|sentdenaiiii.

archetype must have read Gennezur

Corresponding to the Biblical n"l33, e.g.

Num

xxxiv 11, Jos

xiii 27.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

16

the best authorities, both Greek and Latin.

Neither of these verses

taken from Mark, while they are historically parallel to one another.
It is, therefore, a legitimate inference that the statement of our
is

Lord's settlement at this town was taken by Matthew and by Luke

from Q, the non-Markan source, that the name of the town Avas given
in Q,

and that

(or Nazareth)

The

it w^as

We

there spelt NaCapd.

Mark and Nazara

for

Syriac texts, without exception, have

The

in the Peshitta.

have, then, Nazaret

for Q.

adjectives, ^aCapi]v6i

H^XJ, vocalized Ndsrath

and NaCwpatos, are ren-

dered by S^l^i. In accordance with this identification, the accepted

site of 'Nazareth' is called y=LJl to-day, and the Moslems call a
Christian Nasraru

(pi.

Nasara).

Nevertheless, there are difficulties in this identification.

and gravest

is

the z in

'

Nazarene

'.

The

fact

is,

The

first

that in hardly any

We

other instance does Greek C stand for Semitic ^ ^

tomed to the representation of If by z in English, because

are accus-

it is

done

in

But this z is really

the Authorized Version of the Old Testament.
*
made in Germany"': it is the German j, to be pronounced like ts,
and

it

was

first

used by the

German Reuchlin,

the friend of Erasmus,

to imitate the sound which his Jewish teachers used. Before Reuchlin's
time the universal transliteration of IC was simple -y, both in Greek
a,nd in Latin.

The

difference between the ancient

and the Renaissance

system is best illustrated to English people by the name of the city of

David, which is ' Zion in the Old Testament, but ' Sion in the New
Testament and in the Prayer Book. Now whether we accept the
'

'

form Na(a/jeT or Na^apa, the second consonant of the Semitic equivalent ought to be zain (T) not mde (^f). Or putting it the other way, if
the name of the town were ni2fi, or if the Jews were right in calling
Christians DHVi^ (Taan. 276), then the name of the town should
have been written

ISlaaapeT or Nao-o/oa.

It should not

be forgotten that

our Greek Gospels are some two generations earlier than any surviving
monument of Semitic Christianity. According to the Acts, Christians
Avere once called

and we know
was called by

members of the sect of the Nazoraeans {to)v

NaC^paLoov),

that in later times a Semitic-sj)eaking sect of Christians

this

name.

Unfortunately we do not know

how

these

persons wrote their name in their own Aramaic vernacular. The

Talmudic passage quoted above (Gemara of R. Johanan) is later than
Tertullian's reference to Jews calling
the Old Syriac Version.
Christians Nazaraei or Nazareni is coimected by that Father with

Lam

iv

7 and the Nazirites,

'

i.e.

with the D^'l^W.

See Appendix III for details.

NEW TESTAMENT NAMES

SYRIAC FORMS OF
But,

may be

it

said, at

any rate there

Here comes
ment that 'no such town
is

that spelt

in the

The

fact

is,

how

importance of Dr. Cheyne's state-

as Nazareth

Testament, in Josephus, or in

the town Nazareth

is

IT

is

Talmud' {Ency.

the

in

the Old

Bibl.

3360)

mentioned

that the identification of the Gospel '^a^apir or ^aCapa

HIVJ

with a place spelt

stands on the same footing as the equation

of Bethany with Bethabara, or Gerasenes with Girgashites.

It

is

a piece of early Christian archaeology, rather than of primitive

tradition.

An

attempt has been made to regard Nazara or Nazareth as

a name for Galilee, but

evidence,

and

Nazareth as a town (Matt

told us

is

that

seems to be destitute of any ancient

it

certainly contradicts the Gospels, which speak of

it

it

23,

ii

Lk

iv 29).

was situated on a

hill

The one thing

(Lk

iv 29),

which

that
is

is

true

you leave out of consideration

the narrative of the address at the opening of the Ministry in the
Synagogue at 'Nazara', a narrative peculiar to S. Luke, and
apparently composed by him out of Mk vi 1-5 together with some
very probably genuine sayings of our Lord which he took from
another source, there is nothing whatever in the New Testament to
of 'half the villages of Palestine.

If

beyond the mere letters of its name.

There are, it must be noticed, two passages where the name of
Nazareth might have been expected, where nevertheless it does not
occur. The first is Mk vi 1-6, which relates the unsuccessful ministry
of Jesus in His own country {ds ti]v TraTpCba avrov). No further
name is mentioned, though we hear of the Synagogue, and of the
villages round about.
The other is Lk x 13-15 = Matt xi 20-24,
i.e. the 'woes' on Chorazin, Bethsaidan and Kapharnaum.
Of these

individualize Nazareth at all

""

'

Kapharnaum

places,

is

the actual centre of the Galilean preaching,

Bethsaidan (said in the Fourth Gospel to be the town of Andrew and

Peter)

is

the place of refuge just outside the domains of Herod

Antipas, and wonderful deeds are actually recorded that took place
in its

immediate neighbourhood.

But nothing

is

recorded in the

Gospels about work or preaching in Chorazin, while the

Jesus by His fellow-townsmen would have

No

appropriate in this passage.

i*ejection

made 'Nazareth'

of

quite

place in Galilee, indeed, would be so

appropriate.

With some
^

Nazareth ',
*

The

Josh xix

misgivings,

like that

nearest thing
15.

is

of

'

venture

Dalmanutha

to
'

and 'Boanerges',

Beth Lehem Serieh (n*nir Dnb n'n)

See Xeuhauer 190

f.

name
may have

that the

suggest

iu Meyil/a

1,

on

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMV

18

arisen from a literary error.

mean

that we ought to consider

this,

the possibility that the city of Joseph and Mary, the iraTpis of Jesus,

was Chorazin.

do not suppose the adjective Nazarene to have been originally

This adjective, in the two forms NaCapTjzdy
derived from Chorazin,
(Mk) and NaCwpaios (Matt, Joh, Acts Lk having both), is better
'

'

name of the town from which

attested than the

derived.

It

Nazarene \ or

'

the term.

is

case,

It

but the

it

commonly

is

not to think that Jesus was called 'the

difficult

is

the Nazoraean

what

' :

is

doubtful

the meaning of

is

not easy to understand the form Na^copaios in any

difficulty

is

greater

we have to make

if

an adjective

it

denoting an inhabitant of Nazara or Nazareth,

After considering the matter from various points of view,
to me most probable that the word

the

vow of the

Of

Nazirites,

is

really connected with

it

seems

"I^T^

and

course Jesus was not a legal Nazirite,

whatever John the Baptist may have been, for He drank wine.
That He did not scruple to touch an apparently dead body proves
nothing, for the daughter of Jairus came to life again.
Moreover
the saying

'

Let the dead bury their dead

'

actually expresses

an

integral part of the Nazirite's enforced freedom from certain social

Is it not possible that 'Nazoraean' was a nickname.^
might conceivably mean 'this odd sort of Nazarite' one who
calls for I'epentance, and yet eats and drinks like other folk (Matt
xi 19, Lk vii 34).
The true origin of nicknames is easily lost, and
it may have been supposed that the name referred to some place in

obligations.

It

Galilee,

It

should

noticed that

be

most of the consonants of

XopAzeiN i-eappear in reverse order in NAZApeG.

It is

a desperate conjecture, and

would not make

that the ordinary view of Nazareth seems to

And

unsatisfactory.

of the ordinary view

Versions,

is

Galilee

that part of
is

made

There

is

not

it

which

is

attested by the Syriac

to represent a Semitic X.

But

no variation

treated by the Evangelist

1

it

in the Syriac it

becomes fr^iVn

this in the constant tradition of the Syriac Vulgate is vocalized

Kdtne^.

'^

were

mentioned four times in the Fourth GospeP, and

is

has been variously identified.

and

it,

wholly unproved and

the most unproved and least satisfactory part

whereby the z

Cana of

me

Joh
This

ii

1, 11

is

iv

46; xxi

in the

Greek, which

fem. sing,

(ets

tt]v

is,

moreover,

Kaya, Joh iv 46).

2.

would have if it were the emphatic plural of a

and accordingly some MSS. of the Peshitta spell it kIJlj^

the vocalization

participle active,

as

with the plural points.

it

SYRIAC FORMS OF

NEW TESTAMENT NAMES

19

This change ofKava into Kdfne cannot be explained on palaeographical

or linguistic grounds

and Acre, and

the words are really as distinct as Ptolemais

think we must infer that the Syriac word represents

a deliberate geographical identification.

Unfortunately, neither this identification nor the ordinary one can

be made out with certainty.

bridegroom at
\

The marriage-throne

of the bride and

Cana \ three miles from Diocaesarea, on which

in

the

ear 570 or thereabouts Antoninus of Placentia scratched his family

disappeared, and the Syriac Kdfnc is almost equally hard

Katana near Damascus is too far away, and possibly the
place meant is H^^HtOpj the Biblical Kattath {Neubmier 189).
But

name ^, has

to find.

this hardly explains the

We

vocalization.

are not, however, directly concerned with the actual

important thing
the

odd

our investigation

in

name of Cana
'

Such an

in Syriac suggests a geographical identification.

and we must

in Edessa,

The

of Galilee ^ as wTitten in Greek and as represented

tion could hardly have been

home

site.

that the variation between

is

made by a

identifica-

Christian scholar staying at

infer that the translator himself, or the

source from which he derived his geographical theories, must have

been a Palestine Pilgrim.

Round

the

name

many controversies have raged, both

The latest and certainly one of the

of Bethesda

topographical and textual.

most interesting studies of the questions regarding

it

Dr. Rendel Harris in his book called Side-Lights on

ment Research, pp. 36-51 and 70-76 ^.

touch upon all the points raised, except

in so far as they relate to

the subject immediately before us, which

Syriac Biblical

there

is

name.

The

tradition.

a doubt concerning the

As

the

for

site,

'

Testa-

not attempt to

shall

that bv

is

New

the

is

Bethesda

'

'

authority

question

is

'

of the

twofold

and a doubt concerning the

site,

excavations near the church of S.

Anne

the north-east corner of Jerusalem, not far from where our topo-

in

graphical authorities place the Sheep-gate mentioned by Nehemiah,

have brought to light the Pool which

in

the early days of Christian

archaeology was identified with the Trpo/iartK^

Joh V 2 and

in

in the Onomast'ica.

by the Bordeaux Pilgrim

satisfies

It

in a. d. 333,

the data very well.

But

KoAv/i/3?/^pa

mentioned

was this Pool that was seen

and

in certain other

this Pool

is

in

ways

it

the quarter of

Jerusalem called Bezetha by Josephus, and as several very ancient

^

Itinera Sancta IGl

meorum
^

in ipso accubitu,

scripsi.

Angus Lectures

for 1908.

ubi ego indiguus iioniina

parentum

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

20

name

authorities spell the

it is

almost an

the true reading.

is

Bezetha

Josephus

in

in the

Gospel Bi](a9d instead of Bethesda,

that B)](a6d (or something like it)

There is some doubt about the spelling of
a more accurate expression, therefore, for our

irresistible inference

conclusion will be that Josephus and the Evangelist intend to give

the same name.

The most

puzzling part of the evidence

is

that Josephus seems

to tell us that Bezetha

means Kainopolis or New Town

really quite impossible.

The

best attested spelling

is

This

^.

is

Now

BeC^dd.

C between two vowels must stand for Semitic ^am, and there

is no z
we try Hebrew or Aramaic. Beth
Ha{d)tha has been suggested, but this does not mean New Town
It does not even mean
New House or The New House
if it
means anything it means 'The House of the New Man'. Beth^
literally House ', is used in the construct state before nouns to mean
'The Place of, as in Beth Phagge, i.e. 'The Place of Unripe Figs'.
But it is not so used before ordinary adjectives. Neither in Aramaic
nor in English is New House synonymous with New Town. And
when we come to the actual words of Josephus we find that he does
not quite say that the Greek for Ber:etha is Kawij ttoAi?. He says,

'New'

in

or 'Town', whether

'

'

'.

'

'

"

'

BJv 4, 2 {Nicse v

151):

viight translate

BJ n

In
'

it so,

Kakovixeiov

{ti']v

'

B^^tdd to vf-OKTicnov
av

X^yoLT

Kaivi]

ttoAis,

i.

fj-epos,

you

e.

but perhaps another phrase would be better.

between 'Bezetha' and his

19, 4 he seems to distinguish

Kainopolis

re B. npoaayop^vofj.ivqv kqI tijv

KaLvoTroXtv koI to

Aok&v dyopdv).

Professor

Mace

(KXrjdr] b' eTrtx^^ptcos

'EXkdbt yXcoaar]

b ix^OepixiiVivofxevov

Dalman {Gram.,

p.

115) connects the name with Brj^iO

Brj^^ai^, Begeth, and Bethzecha,

and he supposes the name to mean 'Place of Olives' (5<n*T iV^).
But it seems to me, on the whole, best to take a hint from a previous

(1

sentence

vii 19),

to

a place also spelt

T^TapTov
Trji

is

hills

Xvcfiov OS

TTipioiKTjOfjvai

cnroTepivvpLivos

'AvTOivias

which

from

the above-quoted passage

Josephus says, describing the

the

by a deep moat

not possible that Be^edd or Bri(a6d stands for

But does not

'

BJ

There was a great

ii

19, 4

his victims.

5J V

4,

KJiyD

(=

pit or

'.

(BaOe'i, 'a fourth crest

Antonia and ctit off from

it

bits cut off", or possibly

War

6pvyp.aTi

it

^.

Jewish

KaAeirat Be^edd, KeCp^evos p-lv dvTLKpv

be

called Bezetha, situated opposite

'

'

of Jerusalem {Ibid. = Niese v 149):

this suggest

'the bit cut off"

a derivation

NnVD,

i.e.

.'*

Is

'the

Niese v 151).

tank

((ppeap) iu

'

Bezeth', where Bacchides flung

NEW TESTAMENT NAMES

SYRIAC FORMS OF

21

But whether we take this, or regard Bezeth as the old name of an

now become part of the town, or suppose that the
name means 'Place of Olives', we do not in any case come to
Bethesda.
This, the most familiar form of the name to us, is with
one significant exception not supported in any of the authorities by
which modern critical editors are generally influenced. It is not in
the Onomastica, which have Br^^aOd in Greek and Bethsaida in Latin.
outlying village,

It

is

not in

B (B??^(Tat8a),

in ^{ (Bi;^^a^a), in

D (BeA^e^a), in the genuine

Old Latin (Bezatha, Betzata, Belzatha, Betzetha\ or the Vulgate

{Bethsaida).
The Egyptian versions, also, with the text of the
Harclean and the Ethiopic, have 'Bethsaida', spelt like the 'city of
Andrew and Peter
The supporters of Brj^eo-ga are the vast majority of Greek MSS.
(including, of course, A and C), the Gothicizing revised Latin texts
y and 5', and all the Syriac versions, except the text of the Harclean.
It is also in the Armenian, where the spelling {Beth Jiezda) makes it
'.

pretty certain that

For Bethesda
'

'

has been derived from a Syriac source.

it

and the authority of

are the Byzantine tradition

'

the Syriac'; against 'Bethesda' are the ancient Versions (except the

and the most ancient and trusted Greek MSS.

Such a division of the evidence is not only unfavourable to Bethesda
makes it very likely that the Old Syriac Version, which is the one

Syriac), local tradition,

it

really ancient authority that supports this reading,

of

it.

case

We

is

also the source

are dealing with probabilities, and by the nature of the

we cannot hope

to do

more than frame a hypothesis, which

will

cover the facts of the case and be consistent with the phenomena

of other various readings and unlikely forms of Proper Names.

hypothesis,

Evangelist

then,
;

BtjSCo^a, &c.,

translator,

is

that Brj^a^a was

that this

and

the

form

Avritten

became extensively corrupted to

also widely assimilated to

'

My

by the
B?j^ga0a,

The Syriac
forms may have been

Bethsaida '.

on the other hand, whatever of these

House of Mercy was not far off, and

The Martyr Lucian, or whoever else is the real
Antiochian-Byzantine text ^, may very likely have

before his eyes, thought that

'

'

so wrote Beth Hesda.

foster-father of the

had 'Bethsaida'

in the text that lay before

him

this

was a manifest

geographical blunder and needed correction, and the correction that

was chosen was derived from the Syriac tradition.

The whole question is, in certain ways, parallel to the question of
' Nazareth
In both cases we have a current tradition now in vogue
'.

about the names, a tradition which

*

The

is

unsatisfactory in the light

text called AT by von Sodeii.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

22

In the case of Nazareth

of the earliest evidence.

of a

site, in

cases

by

the case of Bethesda

it is

it is

the selection

the form of a name.

In both

far the oldest witness to the unsatisfactory current tradition

I do not believe these Syriac

is
the ancient Syriac Version.
names have any more authority than Joarash for Jairus, or Katne
for Cana
the only difference is that the former pair found favour
at the end of the fourth century among the Greeks and the latter
'

'

pair did not.

It will be convenient to notice here certain Syriac forms of

Proper

Names that for various reasons need some elucidation.

1. The Elamites of Acts ii 9 are rendered X^J/N {Alanaye)
This

is

not an irregular transliteration of

in P.

but means the

26) in connexion

'EXajmetrat,

Alans, a barbarous people mentioned by Pliny (vi

De Fato
The name of

with the Kurds and by the Dialogue

(V* 3) in connexion

with the regions north of Pontus.

the Elamites was no

doubt taken by S. Luke from the Old Testament, but a Mesopotamian translator would know that they were extinct as the Druids,
and so he chose a more modern name from the same sort of region
an

as

In

equivalent.

exactly the

by

translates the 'Parthians'

2. Bar-Jesus,

Western

texts, so

spirit

De

Sacy''s

Arabic

Kurds.

name of the Magus

the

spelt in important

same

.sl^, i.e.

Acts

in

xiii 6,

is

variously

that the original reading

is

some-

what doubtful. In P ND"lt5^ *li {Barshuma) is given as an equivalent.

The meaning of Barshuma is not known what is known is that it
was an old family name in Edessa, where it appears on the pre:

(i. e.
Stella, daughter of Bardo not suppose we can reconstruct the Greek word
which suggested Barshuma to the Syriac translator, any more than
we could recover 'EAa/^etTai from the Alans in Acts ii 9.
3. Matthias in Acts i 23, 26 is transliterated ^''T\J2 in P.
So far
as I know, there is no variation in the name in Greek or Latin,

Christian grave of XDIC^"!^ n^!! VS?

shuma')^.

'

'

except that some ancient

in Syriac the case

him

*tt7in,

and

MSS. have MaOQiav

this

name

is

instead of MaTdiav.

Aphraates 150 {Demonstr.

different.

is

'

substituted for

'

Matthias' w^herever

occurs in the Syriac Version of Eusebius's History.

^

ZDMG

word

xxxvi 1G4.

in line 3, read

take

tliis

r^^Tur^by

It

is

may

it

evident that

opportuuity of suggesting that the

Sachau,

But

iv 6) calls

difficult

be an ill-cut r^laTut^*.

The

bath Barshuma, (2) have made for

myself this tomb. (3) I beg of thee, whoever else enters (4) here, not to move
my bones and the sarcophagus.' I assume tliat VJ? is the abs. state of NnVV
(Job ix 9), the name of a certain Star or Constellation.
first

four lines will then run

(1)

'

I, 'lu

NEW TESTAMENT NAMES

SYRIAC FORMS OF
this

no mere palaeographical

is

error,

but that the Old Syriac Version

of the Acts must have had */b7in also. This

in Josephus (Ant.

xx

Bartholomew'.

An

Samuel, but

1),

and

name

occurs as oAo/xatoy

of course, the second part of the

is,

name ^O^D does occur

obscure

23

name

Judges and

in

nothing more than Ptolemy in a Semitic disguise

*tt7'in is

Levy, Neti-Hebr. Diet., s. v.). Why the Old Syriac of Acts should
have represented Matthias by this name cannot now be ascertained.
(see

Malchus

4.

Malekti) in

(?

in

Joh

10

xviii

The word

S.

not quite certain that an

it is

rendered

is

\7^ (MdleJc)

in P,

but )j?J2

occurs in S at the end of a line, so that

D may not be

lost in the

margin

in

that case S would present a mere commonplace transliteration of

But

MaAxos.
in P, it

more

is

name appears

as the

likely that

1^7^

is

to be treated as a Semitic one

the true reading, in which ease we

have an interesting parallel to 'Gashmu the Arabian', mentioned

Neh

in

vi

^.

)^/J2

(i. e.

dJL)

common Palmyrene name

a very

is

(Cook, Aramaic Glossary, p. 73, where, however,

for

'

vol.

6 \ and 1^7^

Finally, as bearing

5.

vol.

'

a misprint

is

a woman's name).

is

of the Syriac translator,

'

it

upon the general

equipment

sociological

should be noticed that the technical Jewish

term |^*TinjD (Sanhedrm) is never used to render avvihpiov, even when

In Matt x 17 S P the technical
it might have been not inappropriate.
Jewish term for the

focZ

but even

Beth-din)

^,

pn^EJ^nn

^m:^ nS^,

in

Jewish Court

Acts xxii 30
i.e.

'all

is

correctly given

the

assembly

of

(X^l

T\^^,

only rendered

-nav ro a-vvihpiov is

Heads'.

their

imagine the translator was only acquainted with the provincial

Phylacteries and Beth-dins he

Judaism of Upper Mesopotamia.
knew, but the parts of the Jewish organization that came to an end
with the Destruction of Jerusalem were as unfamiliar to him as to
'

'

'

'

the rest of the Gentile world.

It

is

now time

observations.
(1)

The

to

I shall

translator

sum up the main

results of these

attempt to do so in a

series

scattered

of propositions.

of the Syriac Version aimed at giving the

vernacular equivalent of the

New Testament Proper Names,

rather

than a transliteration of the Greek.

Examples
^

In Matt

'

No

whence
'

The

dayydni

viii

doubt

Acre for Ptolemais, Alans for Elamites.

3 tholomeus occurs in for Bartholomew.

IDti'3

corresponds to

*-i-3-

it

would be interesting to know

King derived the spelling tocem'.

Syriac should be vocalized Beth dim', with Gwilliani's Mas. 3, not Beth
(i. e.

'

Place of the judges

').

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

24

(2) Wherever possible, the forms of the Names in the Syriac New
Testament are assimilated to those in the Syriac Old Testament
(Peshitta), which is earlier and normative for the Syriac New

Testament.

Examples

Sehyon for Sion, Yesim for Jesus.

the Old Testament failed, the Syriac

When

(3)

is

sometimes

demonstrably wrong.

Example

Yoarash for Jairus.

A connexion between

(4)

noted, but

the Syriac translator and Origen

by way of agreement

it is

in identification

to be

is

combined with

disagreement in etymology.

Examples
(5)

Bethabara and BetJiphage.

The connexion

is

to be explained by the rise of local Palestinian

Christian traditions, fostered by the rise of Christian pilgrimage.

Examples
(6)

'

Some Syriac

Gergesenes ' and again Bethabara.

identifications never influenced non-Syriac Christian

This demonstrates the existence of a certain independence

tradition.

in the Syriac identifications.

Example

Kafne

for Cana.

(7) In other cases the Syriac identification

for the

modern and incorrect

and

theory,

the oldest evidence

is

some

in

cases

may have

been the parent of that theory.

Examples
(8)

Now

upon Origen
with

all

Ndsrath for Nazareth, BethJiesda for Bezatha.

New Testament

that a direct dependence of the Syriac

is

excluded we are free to date the work in conformity

the other indications,

century a.d.

It

is

i.

e.

in the last quarter of the

monument

thus the earliest surviving

second
of the

reviving interest which Christians were beginning to take in the

Places.

This lessens

its

becomes, to a certain extent, a

critic

rather than a witness.

minutely examined, the Syriac Version, even in

like

all

Holy

value for textual criticism, as the translator

its

When

oldest form, shews,

other monuments of Christianity, the great chasm that

separates the second- century Christian

Church from Palestinian

before the Destruction of Jerusalem.

The only bridge

life

across this

is the Greek text of the New Testament itself.

Naturally
do not wish to deny the continuity of Catholicism with the first
preaching of the Christian Gospel, but the continuity with the
Fathers of old time to which the Catholic Church of the second
century justly attached so much weight was connected with ideas

great chasm
I

and not with tangible

antiquities.

to have very different notions of the

It is
'

possible for theologians

deposit

"*

which Timothy was

charged so carefully to guard, but quite certainly

it

did not include

NEW TESTAMENT NAMES

SYRIAC FORMS OF

25

any theory as to the site of Nazareth. For such things we are driven
back to the words of the Greek Testament, and the Semitic consonants
of the Syriac Version bear witness to no geographical or linguistic
tradition that goes behind this.

BURKITT.

F. C.

APPENDICES
I.

The

Alphaeus, Agabus, Hebrew.

three names Alphaeus, Agabus, and Hebrew, are best treated

together in the form of a Note to Westcott and Hort's well-known

Introduction 408, a paragraph explaining and defending the smooth
and rough breathings adopted by them in their edition of the Greek
text of the
'

They

Testament.

say

Hebrew

or Aramaic we

Hebrew

or Aramaic spelling, expressing

and y by the smooth breathing, and

H and Pi by the rough breathing.

have

New

In proper names transliterated from the

.

exactly followed the

... In AAc^aros we follow the Vulgate Syriac (the Old Syriac is lost
in the four places where the name occurs), which agrees with what
'

the best modern authorities consider to be the Aramaic original.

We

have also in the text accepted the authority of the Syriac for

"kya^a (from ^^V): but

Hagab

existence of a
'E/3ep, 'E/3patos^

in

"Aya/3os (from

Ezr

ii

45

f.

^iH)

Neh

vii

is

supported by the

48.

In like manner

'E^paU, 'E^pdiari have every claim to be

indeed, the complete displacement oi Ebraeus

receive<l

and Ebrew by Hebraeus

and Hebrew is comparatively modern.'

The fame of Horfs Introduction is assured, but some evil genius
It
must have possessed him when he compiled this paragraph.
contains highly doubtful opinions stated as if they were axioms, and
one or two downright blunders.
As however it quite accurately
represents the actual practice followed in all editions of

seems worth while to point out the

I

never could understand

breathing, while

the 'rough'.

any Semitic

H and

T\

The Greek
letter,

'

W.-H.",

it

facts.

why y should have

a Greek 'smooth'

are to be indiscriminately represented

by

breathings do not exactly correspond to

but they do exactly correspond

to

the. rules

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

^6

observed about aspirating or not aspirating the preceding consonant,

and these rules are our only

To

safe guide.

take the case of Hebrew

Here mediaeval Latin and

and unfortunately there is no
instance either in the Old or New Testament where E/3patos stands
immediately after a mutable consonant.
But Westcott and Hort
appear to have forgotten all about the Gospel according to the
Hebrews', to KaO' 'EfSpatovs EvayyeXiov.
So far as I know, Kar
English spellings

first.

us nothing at

tell

all,

'

E^paiovs never occurs: certainly Ka$' *E/3patous

MSS.

in

HE

Eusebius

This, surely,

25, 27, iv 22,

iii

and

in

the spelling of the

is

Origen in Joan,

ii

12.

decisive evidence in favour of the rough breathing^.

is

Agabus has been equally unlucky. I do not know how Westcott

this name began in Syriac with y, or

and Hort came to think that

why

the statement has been so often repeated,

edition of the Acts, the fact being that the

e.

name

g.

by Blass

in Syriac

in his

written

is

aa=i^r<' (D1UX) both in Acts xi 28 and in xxi 10.

Since the

name ends

in

did not regard the

gives us

name

ought to

may prefix a rough

i.

e.

since the

Greek termination

and

tells

ll)in,

in other words,

<v?<\ -y\ f<^ is

he

simply a trans-

us nothing as to the breathing

If

is

infer that the Syriac translator

derivation.

its

prefix to the word.

ArABoc corresponds to

as recognizably Semitic

no opinion as to

literation of AfABoc,

D*l

we must

transliterated into Syriac,

we

on quite other grounds we think

just as ApexAc corresponds to Hdritha, Ave

breathing, but the Syriac evidence tells us nothing

except that our proposed derivation was not obvious in ancient times.

The

decision between Alphaeus

the Syriac versions,

Halpai

now

and Halphaeus is less clear. Here

by the Sinai Palimpsest, have

reinforced

This really does imply that the word is recognized

initial guttural, but also because

(^s7T\).

as Semitic, not only because of the

the Greek termination

the Greek
Palest,

name

dropped.

is

'AA(|)6toj

It

may

further be remarked that

becomes in Syriac Qoa.xa\r^ (Eus. Mart.

i).

The name Halpai does not certainly occur in Jewish sources.

Dalman (p. 142) cites ^*S7*n from j. Kidd. 58 d, but this is not the
name of a Rabbi. The word seems to mean conti'oversialist (j"^).
*

'

However, as there
is no sign of a various reading 'AA(^etos in the New Testament, the
'
authority of the Syriac may in this case stand, quantum valeat, and

Moreover,

in b.

Taan. 21 a

it

appears as K37*J<.

'

we may continue to write 'AA0atos.

^ Under the influence of \V'estcott and Hort the smooth
breathing lias been
used for 'E^paios in the Cambridge LXX and the Oxford Concordance to tlie LXX
!

NEW TESTAMENT NAMES

SYRIAC FORMS OF

II.

It

well

is

27

Capernaum, Caphauxaum.

known that the Tcxtus Receptus of the New Testament

all critical editions spell the word Kaipap-

has KaTrepraov/i, while

like all

These names are the subject of a study by Professor E. Nestle

Theodor Zahn (Leipzig, 1908, pp. 251-270), which
Nestle's work is packed full of curious and recondite informa-

tion.

Nestle points out that Kairepvaovix

vaovfjL.

in a Festschrift for

mass of Greek MSS.,

The

the Versions.

Kacfiapvaovjji.

by the great
by practically all

attested

is

by {<BD, and

also

Syriac has ^<Xxli2k.^, and Nestle conjectures

that the two forms arose from different pronunciations of

well

known that the East Syrians pronounced S hard

Semites)

if

then

*1M was

really a monosyllabic form,

this.

(i. e.

and

if

It

is

hard for
the East

Syrians pronounced the word Kapr, then Kairepvaovix might have

arisen from the East Syrian form.

Nestle

is

quite right in saying that the ancient Syriac Versions

cannot be claimed as witnesses to decide between

indifferently for both.

But the other

tt

and 0, as they use

part, equally essential,

down on investigation. The East

Svrian pronunciation of the name is yiOM^i %^, i.e. Kpar Ndhuvi
This is not only the reading of
or Kpliar Nahum^ not Kapr N.
the Urmi editions and those founded upon them I have ascertained
that ^<\3Ju& iSA is the reading of the Nestorian jVIasora', i. e. B.M.
Add. 12138, one of the most careful and accurate MSS. ever written.
of his ingenious theory breaks

'

Further, the place called nj'l^yn

the

Urmi Bible Kla-Saa^-

"11)3 in

\S>A.'

It

is,

Josh

xviii

24

is

called in

therefore, evident that the

by the East Syrian tradition.

This brings the matter back where it was. But on general grounds
it was not likely that the solution of this curious problem would
come from beyond the Euphrates. The main facts are that KoTrepis attested by what Dr. Hort calls the Antiochian text, while Kacpapis attested by all others.
It is a natural inference that the proe

in KaTTepvaovjx is definitely rejected

nunciation
district

of the

Greek-speaking

may have something

of the Antiochian

population

to do with the matter.

quotes Theodore t for Kairepa-ava, and Theodoret

is

Dr. Nestle

certainly a witness

century Antiochian fashions, which is exactly

Using then Syrian in the sense used by Hort,
i. e. not for that which is Aramaic, but for what is characteristic of
the Greek-speaking district of which Antioch was the capital, we may

for fourth

what

is

V,

to

fifth

anted.

'

""

after all agree with Nestle, that in the

prevalence of the spelling

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

28

MSS. of the Gospels we may

Kanepvaovfx in Greek

Textus receptu3 die Frucht einer syrischen Rezension

Greek Z for Hebrew

III.

The
words

Greeks habitually represented Semitic

which

like ^i.m> for ?VX,

however,

is

If

ist

'.

>f.

by simple

Besides

a.

after all an exclusively Biblical

and

n3*)V. No
without apparent exceptions, and in view of the

Jewish name, we have

rule,

see 'eine der

der Theorie von Westcott-Hort, dass der

starksten Bestiitigungen

is

and

for jll^^f

'E^ihwv

importance of the statement made above

'lap^irTa for

(p.

16) that in hardly any

instance Greek C stands for Semitic X, it is worth while to examine

the names in the Greek Bible (besides * Nazareth') in which ( is

apparently so used.
In

all

pIX

Here

''yi^.

tlie

'ASwrt^eSe'/c

1).

LXX

reads pT2 *i*lX, as in Judges

Greek with C either

2. Arzai-eth (4 Ezra

Ten Tribes

most familiar

Symm., Theod.) =
the Greek Bible

(Aq.,

a8a)i;t/3eCe'<, i.e.

This reading seems to have been

ft'.

in Origen's

Hexapla, with the

change of the traditional consonants.

It should be noticed that ' Melchizedek

aooivi^iC^Kos.

the

has

Hebrew

corrected to agree with the

least possible

in

in their

the order of the English alphabet, we have

in

Adonizedelc (Josh x

1.

Taking them

there appear to be ten.

English form and

Josephus has
'

is

never spelt

Old or the New Testament.

This is the name of the land where
45).

in the
xiii

went, according to the Latin text of 4 Ezra.

It

appears to denote some region beyond the sources of the Euphrates,

and against

all

probability

agree with Deut xxix 28.

highly contentious

word

do very
3.

in

i.

Bozez

and

besides that, it

is

is

niHX

the equation of

V*^^5, to
;:-

and

'^

very doubtful whether the

co^^Q? .Ai^rc*

of the eaiih. Certainly this word can

to prove that the Cin NaCap4d corresponds to !!f.

e.

little

has been explained as

Not only

in -areth at all, as the Syriac has

ended

really

rtl^-ipC.l,

it

(1

Arzaph,

Regn

xiv 4).

in

jSa^ed

the ejid

The rock Bozez

'Lucian\

(|*X11)

is

spelt B^zec

Presumably the Greek read VT^

for pi:i.
4.

Hezron (Ruth

'E(r/3w/x in
'Ao-pwjui,

the

NT

'Acrrpdiv,

iv 18).

The grandson

Genealogies.

and

in

In the

Josephus

occurs in the Lucianic text of

'

of Judah (p^lXH)

OT

we

Aaaapdiv.

Ruth

iv 18,

is

spelt

find 'Eo-pw/x, 'Eaptav,

Besides these, 'Egxoj^

a text which here rests


NEW TESTAMENT NAMES

SYRIAC FORMS OF

29

Lk iii 33 E, i.e. in an
There can be little doubt that
these spellings have nothing whatever to do with the writers of the
upon two minuscules, and

occurs in

'E(pa>/i

8th century.

inferior Uncial of the

1st century a.d.

5. Hnz (Gen xxii 21, I Chr
17), the brother of Buz, is spelt in
Hebrew T*"iy, the same name as the land of Uz, where Job lived.
The land of Uz in the Greek Bible is the x(apa ava-ln's, while in
i

Genesis we find 'HI and in Chronicles

But the Lucianic text has

This again
unfamiliar

is
'

Duke

6.

Ma(ap

Mib::ar of

in the Greek,

7.

name

Hebrew has

'

for Chronicles.

an

in

word.

Edom (Gen

xxxvi 42,

but Ma^'^ap also occurs.

Here

A has

Chr

53)

The Hebrew

spelt

is

is

"1^^.

Chr xxvi 14 B, where the

coj^z seems to occur in 1

T*i}V.

and OvC

more than a mediaeval variant

surely nothing

barbarous

Josephus has Ov^os.

"ils.

"-Q^ for Genesis

icoiac.

Psalm Ixxxiii 11),

Zalmunna, King of Midian (Judges viii 5
Bible
as
SfAjmaz-a.
But Zeba and
appears in the Greek
laXfiavd or
8.

ft*.,

'

Zalmunna' (y])D7V^ H^T) are

{Antiq. v 228).

Is

called

by Josephus Ze^j)^

Josephus modified the name for the sake of alliteration

Zaraces (Ezra

9.

It

is

38) corresponds to the

conceivable that there

may have been

THXV

of 2 Clir xxxvi

4.

in the Semitic original

a mention of Zedekiah (n*p*lV), but the text

ZApiON

kql Zapixovvr.v

too fanciful to suppose that in this instance

it

is

doubtful as

has

and the Latin Zaracelem and Zachariam.

These nine instances appear to me to be of no importance at all.

The case is different with respect to the remaining one
10. Zoar, the city near the Dead Sea, where Lot took refuge, in
Hebrew "IJ?^. It is mentioned eleven times in all. In eight of
:

(Gen xiv 2, 8 xix 22, 23, 30 his Deut xxxiv 3 Isai xv 5) the
Greek Bible has 2^ycop, a transliteration which points to a vocalization
Further, the
different from the Massoretic (? cf. I^^f Josh xv 54).
these

use of y for y is characteristic of the earlier Greek transliterations.

But besides 27p/ajp we find in Gen xiii 10, Jerem xxxi (xlviii) 4,
This is something
y.oyopa and in Jerem xxxi (xlviii) 34 Zo'yop.
more than a transcriber's mistake. It is clear that there must have
been a definite reason for spelling the name of this town with Z.
No doubt the reason was that Zoar was a known place, spelt
Zoapa or Zcoapa by Ptolemy (v 16).
Eusebius {OS 231) says,
'

referring to
.

this

T]

Gen

xiv 2, BaAa,

Koi CIS TL vvv oLKelTat.

town should be

f;

'

eort 2iywp,

?/

vvv Z(t)opa K-oAovfcerrj

Further, there was a special reason

spelt with Z.

We

know from Gen

why

xix that

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

30

name was supposed

the

and Josephus says of

mean
Zojo)/) en
to

it

Now though

'EjSpalot 70 okCyov.

'

Littleham

/cat

and

'

or

'

Littleborough \

vvv Ae'yerat" xaAoSo-t yap ovnos

If

do not indiscriminately or

regularly interchange, yet one or two roots containing these letters

^l^T

do interchange, and "l^^f

in Hebrew, while
little
'

'

When

"niyi.

in

is

one.

"I^^X

Jewish Aramaic

is

one of the words for

it is "H^S?!

and

in Syriac

therefore Josephus says that Ziootp )neans to oXiyov,

it

Aramaic rather than Biblical Hebrew that he has in mind, and

very likely he knew of the town of Zuiopa as ^VT, the form found in
is

the
'

'

Jerusalem

Jerusalem

(i. e.

Somewhat
tinian

'

**

Targum

Gen

to

Palestinian)

xiv

and

xix,

and

also

in

the

Talmud.

similarly the root

pIT

is

used in Syriac (not in Pales-

Aramaic) instead of pHX, so that

regularly in the Syriac versions as X^plHT.

e,

g.

the ^abhovKoioL appear

But

this

is

an exclusively

Syriac form and does not occur even in the Christian Palestinian
dialect.

an

Thus the names of Zoar

IVX Zooapa do

isolated exception to the rule that

to Semitic X.

The

not really form

Greek Z does not correspond

evidence rather suggests that in historical times

town was known by an Aramaic name ("IS?!), rather than by the

old Hebraeo-Canaanite one ("iV^) by which it is called in the Old
Testament.
It is possible that the more modern Aramaic name had
once a footing in the Old Testament itself, and that this stage is
reflected by the Greek Bible, in which possibly 2?jyco/3 corresponds

this

to

^\^)i

while Zoyopa represents 1^1.

slender foundation for supporting

This peculiar case

is

a very

the theory that in 'Na^apiO or

Nafapa the second consonant corresponds to a mde and not to

a zain.

INDEX
Abaddon 7
AbiaS
Abrabam 2

Dalraauutha 15, 17

Acre, see Ptolemais

Adonizedek 28

Elamites 22, 23

Aenon 13

Gadarenes 10 n
Gaza 8
Gennesaret 8, 15
Gerar 10 n.
Geraseues 10 n.

Dule 2

Agabus 25, 26
Alans, see Elamites
Alphaeus
Annas 6

5, 25,

26

n.

Arabia 6

Gergeseues, Girgashites

Arabs 6

Gethsemane 8

Aretas 8

Gushani,

Gashmu 23

9f.

n.

Arzareth 28

Hagarenes 10 n.
Hebrew, Heber 25

Azotus 8

f.

Hezron 28
Hosanna 5

Barabbas 6
Bar-Jesus, Barshuma 22

Huz29

Barsabbas 6

Bartbolomew 23

Isaac 2

Beelzebub 4

'In, see

Bethabara4, 9f.,13, 24
Bethany 4, 13, 14
Bethesda 19f., 24
Bethlehem Serieh 17 n.
Bethphage 6, 13, 24
Bethsaida 6, 9, 17

Jacob 2
Jairus, Jair 7, 22, 24

Jerusalem 4, 12
Jesus, Jesu 6
Jobel, see

Bezatha, see Bethesda

Obed

Joppa 8
Jordan 13
Joshua 6

Bezeth 20
Boanerges 17

Boaz 8
Bozez 28

Lydda 8
Malchus 23
Mattatha 8

Caiaphas 6, 9

Caual8f.,22
Canaanite, Cananaeau
Capernaum 17, 27 f.

Barshuma

Matthias, see Tholomaeus

Melchizedek 28

Cephas 6

Mesopotamia 4

Chorazin 6, 17f.

Messiah 6
Mibzar 29

Chuza 6

24

INDEX

32
Xaiii 8

Sapphira

Naziira 10

Sarepta 28

Xazarene, Nazoraean 16, 18

Nazareth 15 f., 21, 24

Saron, Sharon 8

Nazirites 16, 18

(5

Segor, see Zoar

Shinar 10

Sidou 28

Obed

Silas 6

Simon, Simeou 6
Sion 4, 10

Parthiaus 22
Peter 5 n.

Tabitha 5

Pharaoh 2

Talitha 5

Pharisees 5

Tarsus 8

Phylacteries 5, 23

Ptolemais 8, 12, 23

Sadducees
Salim 13

5,

Sanhedrin 23

30

Tliaddaeus

Tliolomaeus 23

Zalrauuua 20
Zaraces 29
Zoar, Zoara 2i>,^S0

Date Due

Oxford
Printed

by Eiorace

Hart^ at

tlie

Ihiiversity

Press

Syrocuse, N. Y
Stockton, Colif.

he Synac forms of

New Testament

proper

Library
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