Thus the Massorah is extant in two forms, corresponding to the two branches of the Syrian Church. But only one MS. is Nestorian (Cod. Add. 12,138), whilst all except that one are Jacobite. The name Karkaphensian is connected with the Jacobite Massorah, and signifies the kind of text which was favoured in the Scriptorium of the Skull Convent(51). Allusions to the Skull Convent are found; the adjective itself occurs in St. Matt. xxvii. 33, and the parallel passages, as a translation of κρανίου. It is known that grammatical and philological studies were pursued by Jacob of Edessa (d. A.D. 710), probably by Joseph Huzita, rector of the school at Nisibis (vi); and a tract attached to Add. 12,178 suggests a connexion between these criticisms and the labours of one “Thomas the Deacon(52).” We have now traced the history of the several Syriac versions, so far at least as to afford the reader some general idea of their relative importance as materials for the correction of the sacred text. We will next give parallel renderings of Matt. xii. 1-4; Mark xvi. 17-20 from the Peshitto, the Curetonian, and the Harkleian, the only versions known in full; for Matt. xxvii. 3-8, in the room of the Curetonian, which is here lost, we have substituted the Jerusalem Syriac, and have retained throughout Thomas’ marginal notes to the Harkleian, its asterisks and obeli. We have been compelled to employ the common Syriac type, though every manuscript of respectable antiquity is written in the Estrangelo character. Even from these slight specimens the servile strictness of the Harkleian, and some leading characteristics of the other versions, will readily be apprehended by an attentive student (e.g. of the Curetonian in Matt. xii. 1; 4; Mark xvi. 18; 20). ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ We hoped to include in this account some description of the MS. lately discovered by Mrs. Lewis in the Monastery of St. Catherine, at Mount Sinai, and brought in copy last spring to Cambridge. It is now undergoing the careful and skilful examination which the character of the accomplished assistants of Mrs. Lewis ensures, and it is impossible at present to anticipate the verdict upon it which those scholars may recommend, and which may be finally adopted by the learned world at large. The photographic illustration of a page, which has been made public(53), does not suggest that the MS. possesses any very remarkable antiquity. But it is due to our argument upon the mutual relations of the Peshitto and the Curetonian to remark, that the Curetonian will even then rest upon only two MSS., one of them being a palimpsest, in face of the numerous supports of the Peshitto, and that even if the Curetonian be proved, as seems improbable, to date from somewhat further back than we have supposed, the claim of the Peshitto to production in the early part of the second century, and to a superior antiquity, will not thereby be removed. Syriac Versions. Matthew XII. 1-4.