13 From Cod. Add. 14,590, of the eighth or ninth century.
14 [A note of the Middle Age. The reverse is taught in the Scriptures, but even Hebrew Christians slurred the name of Paul.]
15 This is probably the correct reading: the printed text means "among the Assyrians."-TR.
16 Lit. "set their faces."-TR.
1 This fragment, extending t othe lucuna on P. 658, is contained in the MS. No. 14,654, at fol. 33. It consists of one leaf only, and is part of a volume of fragments, of which the age is certainly not later than the beginning of the fifth century.
3 Moses Chor says that he had been suffering seven years from a disease caught in Persia.
4 "The certitude."-C. [See p. 653, supra, note 6.]
6 The vowels supplied in thie word are conjectural, as is the case with most of the proper names in these Documents. Perhaps the name of this person is to be read Shalamtho, as there is a Salamyiw/, the wife of Phasaelus, mentioned in Jos., Antiq., b. xviii. c. v.
7 Who this was, does not appear. He may have been some connection of Meherdates king of the Parthians, of whom Tacitus, Ann., xii. 12, speaks as having been entertained at Edessa by Abgar.
8 According to Moses Chor. b. ii. ch. xxxv., the first, or chief, wife of Abgar was Helena.
9 Probably one of the second rank. Tacitus, Ann., vi. 31, 32, mentions a man named Abdus, perhaps the same as this one, as possessing great authority in the Parthian kingdom. [Note 2, p. 653, supra]
11 The remainder of "The Teaching of Addoeus" is taken from anotehr MS. of the Nitraian collection in the Brit. Mus., Cod. Add. 14,644. It is one of thoes which were procured in the year of the Greeks 1243 (a.d. 931) by the abbot Moses during his visit to Bagdad. It appears to be of the sixth century.
12 Both "for" and "willing" are conjectural, the MS. being damaged.-WRIGHT.
13 Both "for" and "willing" are conjectural, the MS. being damaged.-WRIGHT.
14 Possibly "earthquake," for which sense see Mich., p. 161; and so on p. 659, infra.-TR.
15 Properly "miserable." Compare Rom. vii. 24; 1 Cor. xv. 19.-TR.
16 Otherwise Caesarea Paneas, or C. Philippi: now Banias.-TR.
17 Cureton: "the whole object of our Lord's coming into the world was." But is = omnino.-TR.
18 A few lines are wanting here in the MS.
19 The greater part of the word rendered "deaf" is conjectural.-WRIGHT. The "your" looks as if it were impersonal: "it is useless for any one to talk to the deaf."-TR.
20 "By" ( ) is not in the printed text.-TR.
21 Lit. "the blame in which justice is involved (promp., buried) is yours." -TR.
23 "This" is doubtful.-WRIGHT.
24 I have very little doubt that we should substitute -the erath trembled- for -who is from the earth.-WRIGHT. [Words in italics are by the translator.]
25 Lit. "have proclaimed."-TR.
26 Cureton renders: "They would not have proclaimed the desolation of their city, nor would they have divulged the affliction of their soul in crying Woe!" Dr. Wright pronounces the two words whose equivalents are given in italics to be very doubtful. Dr. Payne Smith, instead of the latter of the two ( ), conjectures . This conjecture has been adopted. "Brought down" is lit "cause to drop."-TR.
27 The ancient Syriac Gospel, Luke xxiii. 48, gives: "And all those who were assemble dthere, and saw that which was done, were amiting on their breast, and saying, Woe to us! what is this? Woe to us for our sins!"
30 Perhaps "town" will not seem too insignificant a word if it be taken in its original sense of a fortified place, which the Syriac term also denotes. IT seemed desirable to distinguish, if possible, the two words which have been rendered respectively "city" and "town" in these pages. the only exception made is in a single passage were Rome is spoken of.-TR.
31 These words are not in the letter of Christ to Abgar. They must therefore be, either a message brought by Addaeus himself, or, much more probably, a later interpolation : earlier, however, than Ephraem Syrus, who alludes to them in his Testament. This notion of the immunity of the city of Edessa is referred to us by several Syriac writers. Nor was it confined to the East : it obtained in very early times in our own contry, where the letter of our Lord to Abgar was regareded as a charm. In a very ancient service-book of the Saxon times, preserved in the British Museum, the letter followed the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed; and an appended description of the virtues of the epistle closes with these words, according to the Latin version of Rufinus: "Si quis hanc epistolam secum habuerit, securus ambulet in pace." Jeremiah Jones, writing of the last century, says: "The common people in England have had it in their houses in many places in a frame with a picture before it: and they generally, with must honesty and devotion, regarrd it as the word of God and the genuine epistle of Christ." Even now a similar practice is believed to linger in some districts. The story of Abgar is told in an Anglo-Saxon poem, published in Abgarus-Legenden paa Old-Engeisk by G. Stephens, Copenhagen, 1853. It consists of 204, lines, is a tolerable close rendering of Eusebius, and is ascribed by Stephens to Aelfric, archbishop of York from 1023 to 1052. Note that ambulet (above) is for ambulabit, apparently.-TR.
35 Lit. "Spirit of holiness."-TR.
37 Prop. "lost," or "being lost," "perishing."-TR.
38 Lit. "support of your head."-TR. The word rendered "support" is not in the dictionaries, but its derivation and form are known. Mar Jacob, infra, has a similar expression: "A resting-place for the head, etc." Where, however, his word is derived from a root meaning to "prop up" , whereas the root of our word denotes to "bend itwself," "bow down" , and is often used of the declining day (as Luke xxiv. 29). It is used of the bending of the head in John xix. 30. The actual leaning of the head of support is not expressed in the verb, but would naturally be inferred from it.-TR.
39 Lit. "the truth of Christ is not believed in many things."-TR.
40 Lit. "the Spirit of His Godhead" = His Spirit of Godhead = His divine spirit."-TR.
43 Abgar had two sons of his name. This is probably the elder, who succeeded his father at Edessa, and reigned seven years. Bayer makes him the fifteenth king of Edessa.
44 Abgar's mother: see p. 657.
46 The vowels in this name are supplied from the treatise of Bardesan. Whiston, from the Armenian form, writes the name Samsagram. He was sent, together with Hanan and Maryhab, as envoy to Marinus. See Mos. Chor. B. ii. c. 30.
49 The son of Zati (see p. 663, note 7, supra).
50 Or "the headbands of the kings." Nothing appears to be known of the derivation of the word , which does not occur in the ordinary lexicons. Dr. Payne Smith has favoured the translator with the following note: " is evidently some king of ornament. In Ephs. ii. 379 (in the form it is an ornament worn by young people. B.A. (Bar Alii Lex. Syro-Arab.) and K. (Georgii Karmsedinoyo Lex.) render it (in the form , which may mean `a circlet of jewels. 0'" Cureton says: "These headbands of the king, or diadems, seem to have been made of silk or muslin scarves, like the turbans of orientals at the present day, interwoven with gold, and with figures and devices upon them, as was the case with that worn by Sharbil. See Acts of Sharbil, sub init." The art. Diadema in Dr. W. Smith's Antiqq. seems to furnish a good idea of what is intended. The ornament was probably white; and this has caused our expression to be sometimes confouneded with the similar . See Teaching of Simon Cephas, init.-TR.
51 The same name as berosus, who is so called in the modern Persiah.
52 These were the chief gods of Edessa, for former representing the sun, and the latter the moon.
53 The reference seems to be to Mark v. 15-TR.
54 The "soft clothing" of Matt. xi. 8, where the Peshito and the "Ancient Recension" have the same word as appears here. Cureton renders it "silk,"but remarks: "It would appear to be cotton or muslin, lana xylina, not bombycina." [The word clothing, with the Peshito and, should be credited to the translator.]
55 The text has not , but it is best to supply it.-TR.
56 Cureton gives "chains," which in his notes he changes to "silks," or "muslins," adopting, with C., the reading instead of the of the printed text. Mos. Chor. calls Aggaeus "un fabricant de coiffures de soie," according to the translation of Florival; or "quendam serici opificem," according to Whiston. It may be added that the word is doubtless the same as our "silk," which is only a form of Sericum, an adjective from Seres, the people whose country was the native home of the silk-worm.-TR.
57 These terms could only have been used here in the sense of the Law of Moses and the Gospel. If by the Acts of the Apostles is meant the work of Luke, this passage seems to show that the compiler of this account of Addaeus wrote some years subsequently to the events which he relates, or that it has been added by a later interpolator. For at the earlier period of Addaeus' ministry no other part of the New Testamemt was written than the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, which is probably the gospel here meant.
58 Or "Ditornon."The reading of the MS. is not clear. IT seems that it ought to be Diatessaron, which Tatian has the Syrian compiled from the four Gospels about the middle of the second century. This was in general use at Edessa up to the fourth century, and Ephraem Syrus wrote a commentary on it. If this be so, we have here a later interpolation. [The translator says (of Ditornon and Diatess.): "The two words would differ but slightly in the mode of writing." He also corrects Cureton, who calls Tatian "the Syrian:" it should eb "the Assyrian."]