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Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
Gospel of Thomas (NHC
II, 2; hereafter GT), many scholars—for example, H.-Ch.
Puech, G. Garitte, A. Guillaumont, and G. Quispel—drew
attention to the fact that the text of the new gospel contained
a certain number of expressions or syntactical constructions
which could be labelled as semiticisms. This observation among
others contributed significantly to the ascription of GT to an
Aramaic, i.e., Syriac or Edessene, milieu. Drawing on G.
Quispel's and T. Baarda's work, Nicholas Perrin's monograph
pursues a triple objective: it seeks to establish (1) that GT
was originally composed in Syriac, (2) that this Syriac text
forms a unity and not a random collection of sayings, and (3)
that the author of GT relied on written Syriac gospel sources,
among them, Tatian's Diatessaron. This assumption
implies that GT be assigned a relatively late date of
redaction, since it is generally agreed that the
Diatessaron was composed sometime after 170 C.E.
Therefore Perrin's thesis takes the opposite course to that of
a significant part of GT scholarship, which dates the gospel to
the beginning of the 2nd century, if not
earlier.
indirect
dependence" (15). As to the actual link between the canonical
gospels and GT, Perrin thinks that, "if Thomas was influenced
by Matthew, Mark, Luke (and John), it is only as the latter are
mediated through the first Syriac gospel record: Tatian's
Diatessaron" (ibid.).
Gospel of Thomas?", begins with
stating the three conditions under which it could be suggested
that Thomas knew and used the Diatessaron: (1) GT has to
be of Syriac provenance, (2) it was written in Syriac, and (3)
it was written after 173 C.E. (the received dating for the
Diatessaron). These propositions lead to a late date for
GT's composition, which contradicts "the unexamined assumption"
of Thomas studies (24), that it was penned around 140 C.E. In
order to establish that GT was influenced by Tatian's harmony
gospel and "that the Thomasine collection is to be understood
not as a string of Greek logia randomly compiled through many
stages, but as a unified Syriac text carefully worded and
arranged so as to conform to a certain literary-rhetorical
pattern," as a "tightly woven Syriac text" (25), the issue of
the original language of GT must be settled. There are, at
least theoretically, three possibilities: Coptic, Greek, and
Syriac, which Perrin presents while asking what each of them
means for the dependence of GT on the Syriac
Diatessaron. Considering that the Greek fragments of GT
(P. Oxy 1, 654, and 655) are dated around 200 C.E., which
leaves a maximum of 25 years between the redaction of the
Diatessaron and the composition of GT, a most direct
road from the former to the latter is needed, which practically
excludes Greek—not to speak of Coptic—and leaves
only Syriac as a viable option. After a review of evidence for
a Syriac GT in the form of a Status quaestionis, and
some observations on possible syriacisms in GT 9, 33, and 41,
Perrin concludes that "it must now be recognized that at least
a fair number of logia do show signs of having been composed
either in western Aramaic or Syriac" (46). As for whether this
specific context was Syriac rather than western Aramaic, Perrin
favours Syriac for two reasons. Firstly, by a process of
elimination, in view of the fact that "clear and unequivocal
evidence for a western Aramaic (and only western Aramaic)
background is simply lacking" (ibid.). Secondly,
"whereas the Aramaic theory certainly has the potential to
explain some of the semiticisms in GT, the strength of the
Syriac theory lies in its ability to explain them all"
(ibid.).
Thomas and His Sources", Perrin comes to
his "final concern": to demonstrate Thomas's dependence upon
the Diatessaron. His demonstration proceeds in three
stages. Firstly, given the document's organic unity exemplified
by its pervasive recourse to catchwords, it is to be inferred
that the collection was written by one author at one time.
Secondly, his sources must have been written instead of oral.
Thirdly, these written sources were in Syriac and included
materials from the synoptic tradition as well as from the
Diatessaron.
Diatessaron, second,
that Tatian and the author of GT belonged to the same world,
the world of Edessene Christianity, and third, that "GT is to
be read as an esoteric Syriac collection in which the hearer's
ability to distinguish wordplay figures prominently" (192). In
his use of authoritative texts, Thomas is indebted to "a broad
exegetical tradition within Judaism and early Christianity"
(195) of which the closest analogy lies perhaps in the Qumran
material. The means by which this exegetical tradition came to
Thomas remains, however, a question still to be answered. The
book ends with the wish that "the placement of Thomas's gospel
within the milieu of early Syriac Christianity will prove to be
(the) much needed new beginning" (196) for the study of GT.
Book of the Laws of Countries
(end of 2nd - beginning of 3rd century).
As to Tatian's Diatessaron, if it was composed in
Syriac—which seems to be, if not the reality, at least
the opinio communis—, it can be reconstructed only
indirectly. On the other hand, our knowledge of Aramaic-western
or eastern- for the first two centuries of the Common Era is
scarcely better than that of Syriac. Nevertheless, the fact
that Syriac was practically standardized by the beginning of
the 2nd century, if not earlier, argues in favour of
its use as a bench mark for the quest for the original language
of GT. My second remark concerns Perrin's main thesis, namely,
that the author/redactor of GT relied upon Tatian's
Diatessaron. Let's say from the start that Perrin's
conclusion is a default one. To put it in his own words, "since
Tatian's harmony was presumably the only gospel record
available in the Syriac language at that time, the evidence
points ineluctably to Diatessaronic influence" (17; see also
193: "Tatian's Diatessaron is the only Syriac text of
the Synoptic tradition that could have been available to
Thomas"). In order to validate this post hoc propter hoc
argument, a side-by-side comparison of the Coptic GT and its
Syriac retroversion with the actual text of the
Diatessaron—provided that it can be reconstructed
with some certainty—would be necessary. Paradoxically,
however, Tatian (and his Diatessaron) is the most
noticeable absentee from this book. Perrin's endeavour has made
out his case for a Tatianic dependence but the
case still has to be tried. There is no doubt that the
discussion resulting from his study will provoke will help
clarifying the matter. Whatever the issue, Dr. Perrin has made
a noteworthy contribution to the study of GT and its
Aramaic/Syriac background.
nd line of the Syriac quotation: read
tšbhwn; p. 44, paenult. and ult. lin.: read
trtyhyn; p. 45, lines 11-12, inverse the two part of the
Syriac phrase; p. 67, n. 40, "from us" is never man but
menan; p. 96, n. 121: read npq (twice); p. 118,
n. 189, 1st line: transliterate ab; p. 161,
line 14: read wnšb hwn; p.
177, ult. lin. (and 74,