Complime OR EXTRACTS RELATING TO THE FIRST AND SECOND GENERAL COUNCILS, AND VARIOUS OTHER QUOTATIONS, THEOLOGICAL, HISTORICAL, & CLASSICAL. TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH FROM MSS. IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM WILLIAMS AND NORGATE, 14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON; AND 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH. MDCCCLXI, THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY NOV 17 1916 HARVARD DIVINITY SCHOOL H44,391 HERTFORD: PRINTED BY STEPHEN AUSTIN, FORE STREET. 270.83 Cowper PREFACE. THE following pages owe their appearance to no public desire to investigate the Syriac Literature deposited in the British Museum. England has produced some of the most successful explorers and discoverers of Syriac Manuscripts, and has at this moment a most precious collection of such MSS., which is unequalled by any other in Europe. But, unhappily, there is little curiosity among the general or even the literary public to know anything about the matter. When Robert Huntington made his collections in the 17th century, he was held in honour and rewarded with a Bishopric. When Claudius Rich procured his invaluable collection it was purchased by the nation; and such modern names as Buchanan and Lee, are none the less remembered for their zeal in this department. Dr. Cureton we all pronounce illustrious in connection with this literature; he has been forward in promoting measures for procuring MSS., painstaking in their arrangement, diligent in their examination, and both accurate and learned as an editor. Dr. Etheridge also has rendered good service to the cause as a compiler and translator. A few others have done something worth honourable mention, among whom is Mr. Payne Smith, the editor and translator of Cyril on Luke, and the translator of the third part of John of Ephesus' Church History. But beyond this, little has been done among us, and the deficiencies in this department are many and grievous. The MSS. in the British Museum have not been efficiently catalogued, and their full contents can only be known. by wearisome personal inspection. We have no complete lexicon of the language, and only two or three Syriac English Grammars. There is very little general knowledge of even the old Peshito version, the most ancient, as to the New Testament, and still less acquaintance with other works. The immense collection in the British Museum has been stigmatized as a mass of Monophysitism, and thus depreciated by opprobrious epithets. And yet there is in some minds, happily an increasing number, a desire to know more of these things. This laudable curiosity ought to be gratified, and doubtless it will be eventually found that the MSS. in question are an important supplement to our knowledge on many subjects. The information and extracts they contain as to the Fathers, Creeds, Councils, and Church History, are considerable. In addition to versions of much that we already possess, there are many fragments and entire treatises hitherto unknown. This is true both of known and otherwise unknown authors. The following miscellaneous matters owe their appearance to the request of the SYRO-EGYPTIAN SOCIETY, whose members feel a praiseworthy interest in this matter. They requested me to publish a few things in English in order to show what might be obtained from the Syriac MSS. with which I am acquainted. I cheerfully comply with this wish, and have thrown together, with a few supplementary observations, some of the extracts which I have made. These have been designedly few and brief. It would have been easier to select some one treatise, but perhaps not so well for the purpose intended. Hence there will here be found a diversity of quotations on a variety of subjects. Some of them I had already published, but I have thoroughly revised the translation of them and omitted many of the notes. Some of them are of little value, and yet all have peculiar features. Those on the first Nicene Council are the fullest, and to illustrate them I have added a remarkable Greek list of the Bishops who attended that Council, and a fragment of one in Coptic. I have also given a version of the Nicene Canons for comparison with the copies in Greek and Latin, and as this version, like the list of members, is from the oldest MS. of them yet known, it cannot fail to be interesting. From the same document I have copied a list of those who attended at the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381, and a few other matters. These lists are important in reference to the names of Bishops and of places, |