Dionysius bar Ṣalibi - Commentary on Revelation

Luke J. Stevens translated Commentary on the Apocalypse, of Dionysius bar Ṣalibi (d. 1171), from the Latin translation published in Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientaliumm 53 (1909).  Stevens' translation was in 2020, with an update in 2021, and is available online (link).  Unfortunately for me, The commentary does not address several passages of textual interest to me. Moreover, as is the case with an "translation of a translation," be careful about relying too heavily on the exact wording of the English.

There are many verses that have no commentary.  I have marked a few such omissions that might otherwise be of interest to me.  I cannot tell whether the issues is that the manuscript preserving this work was incomplete, or whether the bishop didn't write any commentary on the particular place in question.

Thanks very much to Luke Stevens for this translation.  The work itself has the dubious distinction of being the "second oldest" Syriac commentary on Revelation.

At Revelation 1:4, DbA writes: "From him who is and who was—This indicates that (the book) is John the Apostle’s; for thus he writes in the Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, etc. By the words who is, he indicates God."

At Revelation 1:8, DbA writes: "I am the Aleph and the Taw—the beginning and the end. Who is and who was and who is to come—He expounds three times. He is God today and yesterday and forever, according to the word of the apostle. Is signifies present time, and was, past time, and is to come, future time, as God is above times and spaces and moments."

The translator has provided the italics distinction shown above, as though "the beginning and the end" is an explanation of the preceding phrase.  Interestingly enough, there is a textual variant issue on this point and the KJV goes with the longer reading.  

At Revelation 1:10, "I was in the Spirit, on the day of the Lord—He calls the first day of the week the Lord’s, because on that day our Lord rose from the tomb, and on that day the Spirit descended upon the apostles, and on that day creation was created, and on that day our Lord arose."

[There is no commentary on Revelation 4:8-11]

At Revelation 12:1-2: "A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. And when she was pregnant, she shouted and in labor was struggling to give birth—That here indicates the persecutions and vexations that the church must suffer by the Antichrist. For he calls the church the woman; clothed with the sun, because she is clothed with the paternal word that shines more than the sun. And the moon under her feet—adorned with heavenly beauty like the moon. And upon her head a crown of twelve stars—the twelve apostles, whose is the Church’s firmness. And she shouted and was struggling to give birth— because continually and incessantly she gives birth from her heart to the Word, and indeed in the world she suffers persecution by the unbelieving."

[There is no commentary from Revelation 11:9-19]

At Revelation 12:5 "And she gave birth to a male child, who is to shepherd all the nations—He called Christ male, who is God and himself man, whom the Church procures immediately and teaches to all the nations. And her son was carried off to God and to his throne—because he is the heavenly king and the Son of the Father, as David says: The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand."

At Revelation 12:6-7: "And that woman fled into the desert, where a place was prepared for her by God; she there finished a thousand two hundred sixty days. And battle was waged in heaven—The woman is the church who suffers persecution by the Antichrist. And the faithful who call upon the Church in the presence of the pseudo-Christ will flee or scatter: and they will depart into places that now lack religion, that their gospel may be announced in the whole earth."

At Revelation 13:18: "And his number is: six hundred sixty-six—it is not permitted to be equally definite about his name: for we see that many names arrive at this reckoning, for example Titin or Auntos, and others such. This computation occurs in the alphabet of the Greeks, and not in the alphabet of the Syrians. Taw in the Greek language is three hundred, and in ours teth is nine. But because, as we said before: The beast’s wound was healed, and he made the image speak—that he be strengthened, the manifestation is of those who now dominate, i.e., of the Romans. The Romans, before they had this name, were called Latins, and one of them is called a Latin. However, from this name the number of one man is collected. Latin is the name ΛΕΑΤΙΝΟΣ (Leatinos). According to the numeration of the Greeks, those signs are applied: as we said, taw is three hundred among the Greeks, seventy […] such is the name of the beast and the number of his name."

[There is no commentary from Revelation 15:1-5]

[There is no commentary from Revelation 15:8-16:15]

John Bois' Notes on Revelation as it pertains to Revelation 16:5

Translating for King James: notes made by a translator of King James' Bible, translated and edited by Ward Allen, purports to be a transcription and light editing of the notes of John Bois.  As you may know, John Bois was charged with translating the Apocrypha (which were in Greek) and also served as a translator for part of the Old Testament (which was in Hebrew).  These notes, however, are from a further role he played as one of the editors of the KJV.

According to the title page of Allen's 1969, Vanderbilt University Press work, William Fulman made a hand copy of Bois' notes, which serve as the basis for Allen's work.

Below, I offer a few observations.  Those observations come with the caveat that I found at least one odd transcription error in Allen's work in transcribing the translators' notes in a Bishops' Bible (as mentioned here).  So, there is the possibility of error by Allen and/or (in this case) by Fulman.  Moreover, if I read Fulman's notes correctly, he himself was working from a copy made by an "unskillful hand."  In this case, however, Allen's work includes a facsimile of Fulman's notes, so the interested reader should be able to at least check that far without difficulty.

The notes themselves only include Romans to Revelation.  Moreover, there at least two sections relevant to Revelation: "Apocalypse of John" (beginning at p. 99) and "Added to Notes, Apocalypse" (beginning at p. 113).  Allen also created a "References Cited in John Bois's Notes," with the sub-section for Apocalypse found on p. 123.

In terms of the amount of notes, Bois' notes on Romans occupy 3 and 3/4 pages in Fulman's hand, whereas his notes on Revelation are about 2 and 1/2 pages.  

The only reference cited in Revelation (per Allen) is Arethas' commentary (as printed in 1532).  There is, however, frequent citation of the views of Andrew Downes (one of his fellow editors from the "Committee of Revisers"). Bois also mentions "Hutch," which apparently was a nickname of John Harmar, another of the Committee of Revisers. Harmar, or "Hutch," was on the "Second Oxford Company" assigned to translate the Gospels, Acts, and Revelation (link to source). 

Although the notes on Revelation address verses from nearly ever chapter, there are no notes on Revelation 1:4, 1:8, 4:8, or 16:5.  The only note on Revelation 11:17 relates to "and hast entered thy kingdom" (I've changed the spelling).  Thus, as it pertains to my main reason in consulting Bois' notes with respect to the reading at Revelation 16:5, it seems that the difference between Stephanus and Beza was not of any particular interest to the Committee of the Revisers (or at least to Bois).

Bois seems to have some interest in the manuscripts.  At Rev. 3:1 he comments that "Some codices do not have" the word for seven.   At Rev. 13:3 he comments that another manuscript has the word for "he will make war." Other than these two, though, I did not find any others in Revelation.  Neither of these textual observations are derivable from Beza's annotations.

Stephanus' 1550, however, has (at Revelation 3:1):

(source)

Whereas Beza's 1598 has: 

(source)

Similarly, at Revelation 13:5

(source)

Whereas Beza's 1598 has:

(source)

The observation provided by Stephanus does not exactly align with the notes provided by Allen/Fulman, but certainly the presence of a variant is asterisked by Stephanus.  It would be an interesting matter of further study to sort out whether Bois' notes (as per Furlman) have any actual manuscript support as they pertain to Revelation 13:5.

Unless we are to assume that Bois and his fellows independently noted these things, it seems reasonable to suppose that Bois and others did (at least occasionally) compare Beza and Stephanus and thus may have been aware of the difference between them at Revelation 16:5.

The most interesting note to me (on this read-through) was a note at Revelation 13:8, that both Downes and Harmar had the view that "from the foundation of the world" should modify "written" not "slain."  Obviously, on this point, Bois won out over the opinion of his fellow revisers.