A rough translation:
And on the third day the (wedding) feast happened . The exposition of Moses Bar Kepha, -- this day cannot be made to agree with the day of baptism 1, but with that day when he returned from the desert 2, when he had conquered the Devil; for if it be tied to the day of baptism, four days will be computed, because earlier he said 'the next day', i.e., after the day of the interrogation of the priests, John saw Jesus and his goodness, and on another day also two of his disciples, and on another day again Jesus wanted to leave Galilee; therefore this day does not relate to the day of baptism, but to that on which he returned from the desert. -- St. Hippolytus of Rome) the first day, so-called, when the Pharisees asked John, Who are you? and the supposed second day, when he baptised our Lord, and at once He went off into the desert, and remained there for 40 days, and afterwards returned, was the first day, because he saw him walking and two disciples were following him; the second when he went off into Galilee, the third when the (wedding) feast happened. Gaius the heretic used to criticise John because he was not in agreement with his fellow narrators because (he says that) after the baptism he went off into Galilee and performed the miracle of the wine in Cana). St. Hippolytus, on the contrary , [uncertain in ms. -- says to this?], Christ, after he had been baptised, went off into the desert, and when an inquiry was made concerning him by the disciples of John, and by the people, seeking and not finding him, because he was in the desert, when indeed the temptation had been finished and he had returned, he came into the habitable parts, not to be baptised, for he had already been baptised, but that he might be pointed out by John who said, looking at him, Behold the lamb of God! [etc]
1. Matt. 3:13.
2. Luke 4:14.
A modern edition of the Commentary exists, in the CSCO series, with Latin translation:
Dionysii bar Salibi Commentarii in Evangelia : Ediderunt I. Sedlacek, I.-B. Chabot et A. Vaschalde
Series: Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium. Scriptores syri ; t. 33, 40, 47, 49
Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium ; v.77, 85, 95, 98
Publisher: Louvain : Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1953
However this stopped at the end of Luke, on the death of Sedlacek. The portions on John have never been published.
But the Syriac of this portion of the Commentary on the Four Gospels was published by J.Rendel Harris in his article, and he consulted two manuscripts. In this he determined that, in British Library Ms. Add. 7184, the name 'Gaius' was added above the line by a later hand; in another copy of the same text in the same library, B.L. Add. 12143, the addition of the name 'Gaius' was not present at all.
[Footnotes of all articles moved to the end and renumbered]
1. * Ap. Assem., B. O., t. iii., p. 15.
2. + Barsalibi quotes Scripture with great laxity, following the Peshitto in the main, but with many traces of familiarity with the seventh-century versions----the Harkleian in the New Testament and the Syro-Hexaplar in the Old. His citations from the Apocalypse agree so often and so closely with the version commonly printed in Syriac Bibles, as to prove that he knew that version; but he diverges from it freely now and then. In my translation I have endeavoured to represent accurately his method of citation.
3. ++ See Supp. Note (1), p. 418.
4. * See note on v., line 7 (p. 4I7).
5. + See Suppl. Note (4), (3), (2), p. 418.
6. * Besides St. Matthew's Gospel, it is to be observed that Caius cites 1 Thessalonians and 2 Timothy, as well as Genesis and the Psalms. Hippolytus cites (besides these) St. Luke, St. John, and Ephesians ; and also Exodus, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Joel, and Amos.
7. * See the note appended to the Syriac text of this passage (IV., lines 8-14), below, p. 417, and compare the Greek of Epiphanius with the Syriac.
8. + See his article in Journal of Philology, vol. i. p. 98 (Cambridge, 1868). The weighty arguments adduced in p. 110 ff. retain their full force.
9. * A passage in this Commentary, on Rev. xi. 2, presents points of coincidence with the teaching of Hippolytus concerning Antichrist and the horn (Dan. vii. 8), the abomination of desolation ( ib. xi. 31), and the half-week ( ib. ix. 27), in his De Antichristo and Comm. in Danielem, &c. (Lagarde, pp. 13, 21, 32, 152, 160, 166, &c.) But as it does not relate to Caius and his teaching, I do not include it in the present article. I hope, however, to publish it at a future time.
10. * It was from the Commentary on the Second Epistle of St. Peter in this MS. that Pococke first learned the existence of the Harkleian version (previously unknown, even by name, to European scholars), and derived the extracts from it which he has printed (marking them 'S. A,' = Syrus Alter ) in the notes to his Syriac text of the Four Minor Catholic Epistles, published in 1630.
11. + This peculiar order, in which the Apocalypse precedes the Acts and Epistles, is observed likewise in the Earl of Crawford's MS. of the whole New Testament in Syriac (Syr. No. 2), where it stands between St. John's Gospel and the Acts. I am of opinion that Wetstein's Syriac MS., now in Amsterdam Library (No. 184), of the Acts and Epistles, is part of what was once a complete New Testament containing the Apocalypse similarly placed.
12. [Margin] ' In the Gospel: write, In the interpretation of the Gospel. '
13. [Jehoram is of course meant].