The foregoing was all written before I saw the analysis given by Zahn in his _Geschichte des Kanons_, i. 383 ff. Reading it, I am surprised that his conclusions have not been followed up by a thorough investigation of the subject long ere now. Personally, I am precluded at this moment from even making an attempt in this direction. Zahn says: “The quotations of Aphraates frequently presuppose a different Greek text (of the Pauline Epistles) than that lying at the foundation of the Peshitto. The repeated resemblances to Western texts, Claromontanus, Boernerianus (D G), Tertullian, and other Latin witnesses are particularly striking. In the earliest Syriac Gospel the same phenomenon appears even more conspicuously. How is it to be explained? Shall we suppose that this type of text was dispersed equally throughout _all_ parts of the Church during the second century? In that case we should have to regard it as the earliest form at which we can arrive, on the principle laid down by Tertullian: quod apud multos unum invenitur, non est erratum sed traditum. But,” says Zahn, “even those who venerate the Western tradition of the text—_i.e._ those who, like myself, are of opinion that it does not get nearly its due share of attention from present-day critics—will decline to assent to this proposition. Because the result of this view would be to establish the rule that the so-called Western tradition _invariably_ deserves the preference over those others, even over our oldest Greek manuscripts themselves. Even if we limited it to those elements of the text in which the furthest East agrees with the furthest West, the result would still be a text to which no cautious critic would pin his faith. A more natural explanation of this striking condition of things is required.” Zahn finds this in the supposition that there was formerly a close intimacy between the Syrian Church and Rome. “Just as the Princes of Edessa had much direct intercourse with Rome, so to all appearance had the Church there.” In proof of this, he points to the early intrusion of Marcion’s doctrines and Bible into Mesopotamia, to the participation of the Church of Edessa in the Easter controversy and its agreement in that matter with Victor of Rome, and to the Abgar Legend which connects Edessa with Zephyrinus of Rome (199-216) by way of Antioch, and represents Peter as sending the Epistles of Paul from Rome to Edessa. “Considering the anachronisms that legends usually exhibit, may we not take this to be the expression of an historical fact, viz. that a text written in the West formed the basis of the earliest Syriac version of the Pauline Epistles? This supposition is confirmed by the earliest history of the Gospel among the Syrians—viz. by the Diatessaron.”[234] After a most thorough discussion of all the