5. The Syriac Acts of Thomas, including the great Gnostic Hymn which is ascribed by modern scholars to Bardaisan himself.
6. The Homilies of Aphraates.
It is the two last of these, the Acts of Thomas and Aphraates' Homilies, which more especially concern us. You will notice that I have included neither the works of Ephraim Syrus nor the revised version of the N.T. in Syriac which goes by the name of the Peshitta. The reason is only partly chronological. Ephraim's chief literary activity and the publication of the N.T. Peshitta may both be placed about the middle of the 4th century. But they stand apart from the list given above for other reasons. Both represent that effort to keep pace with the Greeks, which ossified the Syriac language and landed the Syriac-speaking Churches in the course of a hundred years in the opposite errors of the Monophysites and the Nestorians.
The N.T. Peshitta is a revision of the Old Syriac, not a fresh translation. It must have been the work of learned and conscientious scholars: its
