for a vernacular Bible can hardly have come from the educated and reading classes, but arose rather from the custom of reading lessons from Scripture iii the congregation. The earliest Christian transla tions are the Peshito or Simple " version in Syria, and the Old Latin in Africa, monuments of the early vigour of two great churches on the eastern and western outskirts of Hellenic culture.
It is scarcely probable that either of these versions is older than the middle of the 2d century. The Syriac, which claims to be first considered, was already an old version, containing obsolete expressions, in the time of S. Ephraem, who died 373 A.D. Internal marks of antiquity are found in the relation of the Old Testament to a very early Jewish exegesis, and especially in the omission from the New Testament of 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation. On the other hand, there is no certain reference to this version by authors earlier than Ephraem ; and the data afforded by the history of the canon, and by a comparison of the earliest remains of Syriac literature the hymns of Bardesanes, who died about 225 are not sufficient to supply the lack of direct information. Some critics still date the version from the beginning of the 2d century, while others would bring it down into the 3d. Even the close of the 3d century has been named ; but this view rests on the unlikely sup position that the omission of five New Testament books was due to later theological influences, and was not an original peculiarity of the version. The translation is, on the whole, excellent. The Old Testament is taken from the Hebrew, and, though sometimes dependent on Jewish exegesis, and in other parts strongly influ enced by the LXX., is decidedly superior to the Targums. The Peshito was the received version in all branches of the much- divided Syrian churches. But it did not stand alone. The Hexaplar version of Paul of Tela, and the slavishly literal Philox- enian (508 A.D. revised a century later by Thomas of Hharkel), were presumably designed in the service of Biblical criticism. More obscure is the origin and purpose of the fragmentary version of the gospels published by Cureton in 1858, and by him supposed to be older than the Peshite.
In the history of the Old Latin version almost nothing is certain, us. save that it originated in Africa, before the time of Turtullian, and that it assumed such Protean shapes in the hands of transcribers that it is to this day uncertain whether several distinct versions are not included in the general name of the Old Latin. Jerome, in deed, speaks only of g:eat variations between copy and copy; but Augustine tells us that the " Itala " is to be preferred to the other Latin interpretations. Hence MSS. of the Old Latin are often called copies of the Itala ; but in truth no one knows what the Itala is, for it is mentioned only by Augustine, and by him only once.
A version which at best was a rude and over-literal rendering of the Greek Bible, in an unpolished provincial dialect, and which had not even that fixed form which is so necessary in a Bible lor ecclesi astical use, could not continue to serve the needs of the great Latin Church ; and towards the close of the 4t!i century a work of revision was undertaken at the instance of Damasus, bishop of Rome, by Jerome, the most learned of the Western doctors. Jerome began by correcting the New Testament, making only such changes as seemed absolutely imperative. In the Old Testament he first revised the Psalter after the LXX., producing the version known as the Roman Psalter from its adoption in the Roman liturgy. A second revision, based on the Hexaplar text, forms the Gallican Psalter, long used in Gaul and other churches beyond the Alps. Then Jerome pro ceeded to revise other books on the basis of the Hexaplar Greek ; but, finding this half-measure unsatisfactory, he finally rendered the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew. The work was com pleted 405 A.D., and though often dependent on Aquila, and especially on Symmachus, it bears high witness to the scholarship of the author, and is perhaps the best of the ancient versions. In spite of its merits the new version was much attacked, and made way in public estimation by very slow degrees. It was not till the 9th century that the Old Latin was entirely superseded in the Roman Church, and the circulation of the old and new versions side by side was long a fertile source of corruptions in the text of both. At length the complete supremacy of Jerome s Latin was marked by the transference ta it of the name of the Vulgate Version, which in older times was given to the LXX.
The Egyptian versions (Memphitic in the dialect of lower Egypt, rn Thebaic or Sahidic for upper Egypt) supplied the needs of the only us. great Christian population of the early church which was not able to use the Greek, the Latin, or the Syriac. The most recent inquirers are disposed to believe that Egypt received the Bible in the vernacular almost as soon as Syria. The version was taken from the Greek, which was also the source of various later transla tions the Ethiopia, the Armenian (5th century), the Georgian (6th century), the Slavonic (9th century) fruits of the gradual diffusion of Christianity in the remotest regions of the ancient world. The Gothic version of Ulfilas the earliest written monument of the Teutonic languages is of the 4th century, and was also from the Greek. Only fragments of this translation remain to us, mainly in the famous silver-lettered MS. of the 5th or 6th century (Codex Argenteus) in the library of Upsal.
Thus for the history of the versions records the triumphs of Christianity. The Arabic versions, on the contrary, owe their origin to the spread of Islam, when the language of the conquering Sara cens displaced the ancient dialects of Syria and Egypt. This change did not diminish the authority of the old ecclesiastical versions, or displace them from their position in the services of the church. The edification of the unlearned was secured by reading the lessons in the vulgar tongue, as well as in Syriac or Coptic ; and, accord ingly, the numerous Christian Arabic versions are mainly taken not from the original tongues, but from the versions whose use they were designed to supplement. In like manner the rise of the New- Persian language and literature produced a Persian version of the Syriac New Testament. Of parts of the Old Testament there arc Arabic and Persian translations directly from the Hebrew, but these are the work of Jewish scholars. The Arabic versions of the Pentateuch and Isaiah, by R,. Saadias Gaou, in the 10th century, are among the most important monuments of ancient Jewish learning.
In the West as in the East the disintegration of the Roman empire was associated with the rise of new national dialects, and Latin ceased to bo understood by the laity. But the Roman Church was too intent on the preservation of her homogeneous organization, her visible unity of worship, to allow the vulgar tongues to supplant the old liturgical language, or even to introduce a bilingual service. The use of the Bible in a form intelligible to the illiterate was sliifted from the sphere of public worship to that of private edifica tion and instruction ; and for the latter purpose the necessities of a barbarous age seemed to demand explanatory paraphrases, Bible narratives in metre, and the like, rather than literal renderings of the whole Scriptures. Thus, in the Anglo-Saxon Church, Caedmon s poetical version of the Bible history dates from 664 A.D., while the earliest prose translations of parts of the Latin Bible (gospels, psalms, &c.) do not seem to be older than the 8th century. In German)-, in like manner, metrical versions of the gospel are among the earliest attempts to convey the Bible to the people. Ottfrid s harmony of the gospels in High German, and the poem called Ucliand (Saviour), in Old Saxon, date from the 9th century; and the prose translation of the so-called Gospel Harmony of Tatian from the Latin of Victor of Capua belongs to the same age. A complete anl literal translation of the Vulgate existed in Germany perhaps as early as the beginning of the 14th century. Among natio s whose speech was descended from the vulgar Latin, the work of translation naturally began later. The earliest remains of Romance versions are thought to be as old as the llth century j but the work of tianslation assumed important dimensions mainly in connection with the spirit of revolt against the Church of Rome which rose in the 12th and 13th centuries. The study of the Bible in the vulgar tongue was a characteristic of the Cathari and Waldenses, and the whole weight of the church s authority was turned against the use of the Scriptures by the laity. The prohibi tion of the Bible in the vulgar tongue, put forth at the Council of Toulouse in 1229, was ixpeated by other councils in various parts of the church, but failed to quell the rising interest in the Scrip tures. In England and in Bohemia the Bible was translated by the reforming parties of Wyclif and Huss ; and the early presses of the loth century sent forth Bibles, not only in Latin, but in French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Dutch.
The Printed Text.
Though the Latin Bible was the first book printed, the original Printed text .vas for some. time neglected. The Jews of Italy led the way Hebrew with several editions of parts of the Old Testament, commencing Bibles, with the Psalter of 1475. The beautiful edition of Soncino (1488)vas the first complete Hebrew Bible, and was soon followed by the edition of Brescia, used by Luther (1494). At length Christians interested themselves in the work. The Antwerp printer, Daniel Bomberg, established a Hebrew press in Venice, from which he sent forth a series of Bibles and other books. The famous Rabbinical Bible of 1517, edited by Felix Pratensis, a converted Jew, is known as the first Bomberg Bible, and is especially valuable for the text of tho Targums, which it prints in parallel columns with the Hebrew. TLo second Rabbinical Bible of Bomberg was edited by R. Jacob Chayim (who also became a Christian), and contains the first printed edition of the Massora, with a text carefully corrected in accordance with Massoretic precepts. This edition at once attained a great reputation. It was several times reprinted, and most subsequent editions arc directly or indirectly dependent on it. The only early edition which rivals its fame is the Complutensian Polyglott, pub lished at Alcala in 1517, at the expense of Cardinal Ximenes. The Hebrew of this polyglott exhibits a peculiar text, independent of the Italian editions. Later editions of the Hebrew Bible present little or no advance on the early prints ; and most recent editioiis are decidedly inferior. Of Hebrew Bibles, with various readings from MS. authority, the best known are Kennicott s (Oxford, 1776, 1780) and De Rossi s (Parma, 1784-1798). The latter collection is by far the best, but neither has done much for the improvement of the text. In fact the differences between really good MSS. are
