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Document Details :

Title: A View on the Integrity of the Syriac Commentary on the Diatessaron
Author(s): LANGE, Christian
Journal: Journal of Eastern Christian Studies
Volume: 56    Issue: 1-4   Date: 2004   
Pages: 129-144
DOI: 10.2143/JECS.56.1.578698

Abstract :
Scholars commonly refer to the text in question as the Syriac Commentary on the Diatessaron. Tradition attributes it to Ephrem the Syrian, one of the most distinct writers of Syriac literature. Apart from fragments from the work of Mar Aba, the composition represents the only surviving commentary on the eldest form of the Syriac New Testament, the Diatessaron. For long the text was known only via an Armenian translation of which Louis Leloir presented the critical edition in 1953, based on two medieval manuscripts dating from the 12th century. In the 1950s and around twenty years ago, however, fragments of a Syriac manuscript – MS Chester Beatty 709 – came to light. The manuscript, originally from the Deir-Surian monastery in the Wadi Natrun in Egypt, probably dates back from the fifth century and, therefore, serves as an important witness to the original text of the Commentary.