Syriac New Testament

[Syriac New Testament].
Liber sacrosancti evangelii de Iesu Christo Domino… characteribus & lingua Syra.
Vienna: Michael Zymmerman, 1562. (BRA0934)

The Peshitta (“simple”) version of the Syriac New Testament, based on the second-century “Old Syriac” translation, was used by the Syriac Church from at least the early fifth century. The exhibited book is a 1562 reprint of the 1555 first edition of the Peshitta New Testament. Published anew at the expense of Emperor Ferdinand I for circulation among European scholars, it was edited by Johann Albrecht Widmanstadt (1506–1559) with the assistance of the Syrian priest Moses of Mardin. The woodcut introducing the Gospel of John depicts the evangelist at the foot of a Crucifix that emanates symbolic figures of each of Christ’s wounds.