which describes these manuscripts.* Thomas consulted the Peschito, as well, with much advantage. On the whole, he made such extensive alterations in the Philoxenian document, as to publish a new version, rather than a recension of the text he had undertaken to revise. His production has been accordingly distinguished by modern critics as the Harkleian. It is remarkable for its minute adaptation to the peculiarities of the Greek text. The copy from which Dr. White printed his edition was one of a мs. edition prepared by Dion Barsalib, bishop of Amida, in the year 1166. In Adler's Versiones Syriaca there is a description of seven other codices of the Philoxenian, in the Vatican, Barberini, and Angelical libraries at Rome, the Royal at Paris, and the Medicean at Florence; the latter manuscript, the epigraph declares, was written at Edessa, in the temple of the holy apostles, in the year 757.

III. There was a version of the Old Testament, made about the seventh century, which is sometimes called the SYRO-ESTRANGELO. This, it is thought, was executed from the Hexapla Greek of Origen; but by whom,whether Mar Abba, a Persian by birth, and primate of the East about 540, or Jacob of Edessa, Paul, bishop of Tola, or Thomas of Charchel,-is matter of dispute. A portion only has survived. Masius, in the preface to his comment on the Book of Joshua, speaks of his having then in his possession a manuscript of it, containing the Books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Esther, Judith, and Tobit; but the fate of this document

* Dissertatio de Syriacarum N. T. Versionum Indole atque Usu. See also MICHAELIS, Introd. to New Test. chap. viii, sect. 6, with Marsh's Notes.

+ See ADLERI Novi Testamenti Versiones Syriaca. Hafnie, 1789. 4to.

is not known. Another portion of the Syro-Estrangelo has, however, been preserved in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, including the Books of Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Hosea, Amos, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Isaiah. According to the epigraph at the end of this Ms. the version was made from an exemplar of the Septuagint, which Eusebius had corrected from the work of Origen deposited in the library at Cæsarea. It has the character of being a faithful translation of the Seventy, agreeing exactly with the latter in the places where it differs from the Hebrew. The text is distinguished, also, by the diacritical marks adopted by Origen in the Hexapla. These remains of the SyroEstrangelo have been given to the world in various parts, at different times, as follow:-The first Psalm, by De Rossi, Parma, 1778;* Daniel, by Bugati, Milan, 1786; Jeremiah and Ezekiel, by Norberg, 4to. London, 1787; the Psalms, Milan, 1816; the Books of Kings and Chronicles, Isaiah, the twelve minor Prophets, Proverbs, Job, Song of Solomon, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes, by Middledorf, Berlin, 1816; Daniel, with critical notes, by Halm, at Leipsic, in 1845.

IV. What has been called the KARKAPHENSIAN version is merely a Jacobite revision of the Peschito, modified by occasional alterations, especially in the orthography of proper names and Græco-Syriac words, after the manner of the Harkleian, and by another arrangement of the books. Thus, in the Old Testament, the Book of

* Specimen inedita et Hexaplaris Bibliorum Versionis SyroEstranghelæ, cum simplici atque utriusque Fontibus Græco et Hebræo collatæ, cum duplici Latina Versione et Notis. Edidit, ac Diatribam de rarissimo Codice Ambrosiano, unde illud haustum est, præmisit J. B. Rossi.

Job is put before Samuel, and the minor prophets suc ceed Isaiah, while Daniel is followed by the Proverbs. The New Testament opens with the Acts of the Apostles, which are succeeded by the Epistles of James, Peter, and John. Then follow the fourteen Epistles of St. Paul; and the four Gospels complete the whole. To what extent this recension has been used, it is impossible to say, or whether the peculiar arrangement of the books obtained uniformly in all copies, or is accidental to the one in the Vatican, from which, as examined and described by Wiseman, we have the sum of our information on the subject. This manuscript was executed in the monastery of Mar Aaron, on Mount Sigara, in Mesopotamia, a circumstance which, some think, explains the name, Karkaphensian, or Karkufita; karkupha signifying "a mountain."

V. There is also in the Vatican at Rome an exemplar of another Syriac version of some parts of the New Testament. It comprises, in about four hundred columns, on vellum, a series of lessons for public reading throughout the year, beginning at Easter, for sabbaths and saints' days, according to the Syrian calendar. It has been amply described by Adler, and was subsequently collated by Scholz. This manuscript was written in a religious house at Antioch, in the year 1030; but the version itself evidently belongs to an earlier period, and was made while Syria was yet subject to the Romans. The dialect is a rustic East Aramean, largely intermixed with foreign words, Greek, Latin, &c. The alphabetical character varies from the common Syriac, approaching more to the square Chaldee. The dolath (d) wants the point underneath, which distinguishes it from the resh (r); and instead of the letter phe (p) being employed to express alike the sounds of p and ƒ, two dis

tinct characters are used; the figure denoting F, and the letter P. So also in the grammatical forms, the Chaldee developement is followed in preference to the Western Syriac. To this version has been given the name of the HIEROSOLYMITAN. It was made on the basis of the Alexandrine Greek text. The passage, John vii. 53; viii. 1-11, wanting in the Peschito, is given in close resemblance with the text of the Codex Beza.

V. THE SCRIPTURES IN THE DIALECTS OF EGYPT.

CHRISTIANITY took early root in Egypt. Among the first evangelists we find men of Alexandrine education, as Apollos and Barnabas of Cyprus. The apocryphal "Gospel according to the Egyptians" is thought, by Neander, to prove the influence so soon exerted by the great facts of our religion among that people.* Tradition assigns to St. Mark the honour of being the founder of the church in Alexandria. Constant intercourse and congeniality of spirit would contribute to spread the gospel among the Jewish and Grecian colonies in Lower Egypt; and though the prevailing use of the country language, the power of the priests, and the strength of the olden superstitions, would render the progress of the truth difficult in Middle and Upper Egypt, yet a persecution of the Christians in Thebais, under the emperor Septimius Severus,† proves that the faith of the Cross had already made considerable way in Upper Egypt towards the close of the second century.

I. The Coptic language was a combination of the antique Egyptian and Greek; the latter having become so widely used in Lower Egypt after the time of Alexander, * NEANDER, K. G. § 1. + EUSEB. H. E. lib. vi. cap. 1. Coptos, Aiguptos. So Scaliger.

as, by coalescing with the parent language, to have produced a new dialect.

The version of scripture in this tongue is called, interchangeably, the Coptic or Memphitic. The Old Testament is from the Hesychian text of the Seventy, and was probably executed in the fourth century. Parts of it only survive. Of these, Wilkins published the Pentateuch, in 1731. The Psalms were printed at Rome, in 1744 and 1749. Portions of Jeremiah, (ix. 17, to xiii.) by Mingarelli, at Bologna, in 1785; and the ninth chapter of Daniel, by Münter, at Rome, in 1786. In our own time, Archdeacon Tattam has published the twelve Minor Prophets, at Oxford. The New Testament was rendered on the Alexandrine Greek text, and not later than the third century. It was edited by Dr. Wilkins, with a Latin version, and printed at Oxford.

II. In the Sahidic or Thebaic dialect the Old and New Testaments had been translated, according to Woide, in the second century. But the work was probably co-eval with the Memphitic. Parts of the Old Testament have been edited by Münter, Zoëga, and Mingarelli; and of the New, by Woide and Ford. As might be expected, it harmonizes, with some few exceptions, with the Alexandrine recension of the Greek.

III. There was a third Egyptian version, in a bastard kind of dialect, called the Bashmuric, Ammonian, or (as Quatremere) Oasitic, of which some fragments only of each Testament have been brought to light. These were published at Copenhagen, in 1816, with a Latin version.

[The student who wishes to turn his attention to these dialects will find, both on them and the other oriental languages, a valuable bibliography of Grammars and Lexicons in the Rev. T. H. Horne's "Introduction to the