Spicilegium Syriacum (1855), Preface to the online edition

This collection of material from Syriac sources was assembled by William Cureton from the Nitrian desert manuscripts.  The 'Apology of Melito' is now considered spurious, and the production of a later age.

I have omitted almost all the Greek and Syriac with which the work is liberally studded.  Most of the notes are philological, many concerned with highlighting how mistaken Renan or B. Harris Cowper ('B.H.C.') were in their translations of some of this material.  I have omitted almost all of those.  Selected notes, or portions of them, have been moved from the end to the foot of the work to which they relate.  The Greek of Bardesan, quoted from the Praeparatio Evangelica, I have omitted; likewise the Latin of Caesarius.  The reason for omission is that I would have to manually transcribe the material, character by character, and I do not know of any online readers to whom it would be of sufficient interest to justify so many days labour.

Roger Pearse
9th July 2003

This text was transcribed by Roger Pearse, 2003.  All material on this page is in the public domain - copy freely.

Greek text is rendered using the Scholars Press SPIonic font, free from here.