Ephrem's Commentary on the Diatessaron / Letters: Severus of Antioch and Julian of Halicarnassus (folios 1-10)

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Object no:: Syc 709

Title:: Ephrem's Commentary on the Diatessaron / Letters: Severus of Antioch and Julian of Halicarnassus (folios 1-10)

Creator:: Unknown
Egypt (possibly)

Production date:: c. 500, first 10 folios 8th or 9th century

Dimensions:: 253 mm x 170 mm x 55 mm (height x width x depth)

Material:: Parchment (material) Ink (material) Leather (material) Wood (material)

Language:: Syriac (language)

Script type:: Estrangelo script Nestorian Serto script

Collection:: Syriac collection

Document type:: Manuscript

Object name:: Codex

Description:: Parchment manuscript containing two distinct texts written in Syriac. The first ten folios reproduce an exchange of letters between Severus of Antioch and Julian of Halicarnassus relating to the corruptibility or incorruptibility of the body of Christ. It was written in a mixture of estrangela, nestorian and serta scripts in the 8th or 9th century in Egypt. The remaining sixty-five folios, also produced in Egypt, contain a substantial portion of Ephrem's Diatessaron Commentary written in estangela script and dated to the late 5th or early 6th century. The two texts were acquired in 1957 and bound together in 1960. This portion of the Commentary comprises chapters 1.2-1.27, 9.14-18.3, and 21.4-22.5, prayers and a short section on the evangelists. Chapters 2.4-9.10 (with some lacunae) are preserved as CBL Syc 709.1. A single folio in Barcelona preserves 1.31-2.4. Taken together, approximately 80% of the original codex survives (107 of the estimated 134 original folios). The Diatessaron was a gospel harmony written by Tatian (120–173 AD), a second-century Christian theologian. Although highly influential in the early development and spread of Christianity, it was eventually replaced in the Syriac-speaking church by the four-gospel codex, and only a single fragment in Greek translation of Tatian’s Diatessaron has survived. That any of the Syriac text survives at all is down to the work of Ephrem (c. 306–373 AD), the most celebrated Father of the Syrian Church. His commentary on the Diatessaron includes quotations from Tatian’s original Syriac text, and is therefore a unique witness to the earliest phase of Syrian Christianity. Although later translated copies of Ephrem’s work survive, this is the only known copy in Syriac.

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