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Translated by R. Payne Smith
St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 7
But it seemed to me expedient for another reason to reproduce as exactly as possible the renderings of the Syriac translation. For the perfecting of the English translation of the Inspired Word is one of the noblest tasks which the mind of man can undertake: and though there may be evils attendant upon interfering with our present noble Saxon Version, still none can be so great as its being regarded by a gradually increasing proportion of the community as deficient in correctness. To commission however any body of scholars, however competent, to undertake a completely new version, or at present even a general revision of what we have, would be, in my opinion, at least premature. The controversy ought to be carried on in a region distinct from the book which we use in our worship and devotion: and such at present is the case, the attempts at improvement being made by individuals, and not by any constituted authority. When, however, there has been gained a sufficient mass of results generally received, the time will have come for the proper steps to be taken for admitting them into the authorized version. And possibly in the New Testament the labours of so many scholars and commentators may in a few years bring matters to such a pass as may justify the proper authorities in undertaking its revision: but in the Old Testament the case is very different, and a lengthened period of far more profound study of Hebrew literature than at present prevails, carried on by many different minds, is required before anything more could be done than to bring the translation in a few unimportant particulars nearer to the Masoretic text.
In the present translation, therefore, I have used the utmost exactness in rendering all quotations from Holy Scripture, in the hope that it might not be without is value to shew in what way the New Testament was understood and rendered by so competent and ancient an authority as the Syriac translator of this present work.
It remains now only to mention the relation in which the Syriac Version of the Commentary stands to the Greek remains collected by Mai, and of which I have given a translation wherever the MS. of the Syriac was unfortunately defective.
As early then as the year 1838 Mai had shewn the great value of this Commentary by the extracts published in the tenth volume of his Auctores Classici: and from that time he laboured assiduously in making his collection as complete as possible, until at length in the 2nd vol. of his Bib. Pat. Nova, the fragments gathered by him from twelve different Catenae, together with a Latin translation, occupy more than 300 quarto pages.
But the critical acumen of Mai was by no means commensurate with his industry. With the usual fault of collectors, the smallest amount of external evidence was sufficient to override the strongest internal improbability: nor apparently did his reading extend much beyond those Manuscripts, among which he laboured with such splendid results. At all events, though Cyril was an author whom he greatly valued, not only does he ascribe to the Commentary a vast mass of matter really taken from Cyril's other works, but even numerous extracts from Theophylact, Gregory Nazianzen, and other writers, whose style and method of interpretation are entirely opposed to the whole tenor of Cyril's mind.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/luke-commentary.asp?pg=7
