which, written in parallel columns with them as used in the East, may be found in the Bibliotheque Royale, at Paris.

IV. Some parts of scripture have been translated into Arabic from the Latin Vulgate; these are modern, and the work of Romish missionaries, or of oriental monks residing at Rome. Such is the New Testament published there in 1752, by Raphael Tooki, bishop of Arsan.

XIII. THE BIBLE IN ANGLO-SAXON.

So early as the year 706, Aldhelm, the first bishop of Sherborn, translated the Psalms of David into AngloSaxon ; * and another version of the same book was executed, about the same time, by an anchorite, named Guthlac. Egbert, or Eadfrid, bishop of Holy Island, soon after finished a version of the four Gospels, a copy of which exists among the Cottonian manuscripts in the British Museum. These efforts were speedily followed by the labours of the Venerable Bede, who translated the Gospel of St. John; and by a version of the four Gospels by two presbyters, named Farmen and Owen. The Psalms were again translated by Alfred in 900, and the Pentateuch by Elfric, archbishop of Canterbury, in 995, together with some other books of the Old Testament.

As made from the old Latin, these works may not be without use in the department of criticism, in identifying the readings of that version. Le Long has given an account of the Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, in his Bibliotheca Sacra, tom. i. ; and a well-digested catalogue may

* Previously Cadmon had given a sort of metrical paraphrase of some parts of Genesis, (vide SMITH'S "Religion of Ancient Britain," p. 384,) and parts of scripture for church reading might have been already translated.

also be seen in Wanley's Appendix to Hickes's Thesaurus, Oxford, 1705.

No entire edition of the Anglo-Saxon scriptures has yet been published; but the Gospels have been several times printed.

These versions of the Holy Books in so many languages have not only ministered to the moral improvement of mankind, and the special edification of Christian communities in the different countries to which they have been indigenous, but have also tended to the well-being of the church at large, and the general advancement of Christianity First, as becoming permanent and irrecusable vouchers for the integrity and genuineness of the Bible itself; Secondly, as affording powerful aid in the ministerial interpretations of the scriptures; so as that, with an ability to read and compare them with the originals, a man of prayerful and meditative habits, in preparing for the pulpit, will seldom find himself obliged to have recourse to our voluminous commentators; while, Thirdly, they have formed an important class of instruments in the apparatus of biblical criticism, in its legitimate exercise for the emendation or the defence of the sacred text. Thus, in the investigation of those various readings which had been produced by the repeated transcription of copies during the ages which preceded the use of printing, the value of the ancient translations cannot but be apparent; and that because their antiquity is undoubted, their text far from being seriously impaired, and inasmuch as the manuscripts from which some of them were made were both older than any now extant, and such as the translators would reasonably choose as the purest and best. In their researches on the state of the biblical text, Kennicot and De Rossi on the Hebrew Old Testament; Morinus on the Samaritan Pentateuch; Holmes and Parsons on the

Septuagint; and Erasmus, Walton, Mill and Lejay, Bengel and Wetstein, Griesbach, Matthai and Scholz, on the Greek Testament; have all felt their obligation to the ancient versions. Without these, their examination of the best preceding editions, of inedited codices, or of casual quotations of passages in the writings of the fathers, would not have led to those entirely satisfactory conclusions with which their labours have been so happily crowned.

As, however, the relative value of these old translations will admit of various degrees, the student must see the necessity of using them with proper caution, and of learning to form a practical estimate of their comparative utility as means of criticism or of interpretation, by an inquiry,

1. Into the AGE in which any given version was executed; since those will, of course, have a peculiar value which ascend the nearest to the times of the original writers: for example, the Septuagint and principal Targums on the Old Testament, and the Peschito and Vetus Latina on the New.

2. The SOURCE of the version: whether it was the original Hebrew or Greek, and, if so, of what recension or family; because that translation is to be especially preferred which, with the circumstance of antiquity, combines the character of immediateness from the archetypal,record.

3. The COUNTRY where it was made: as this may lead to good conclusions on the class of manuscripts on which the translator laboured; different classes or families of texts having been commonly employed by different churches.

4. Some important inferences may also be made from what can be known of the TRANSLATOR himself: (1.) As to his creed; was he a Jew or a Christian? If the former, a Rabbinist or Karaite? if a Christian, of the Arian school, as Ulfila? a Monophysite, as Thomas of Harchel? of the Greek church, as Cyril and Methodius, who translated the

scriptures into Slavonic? or a devotee of Rome, as Haitho, the interpolator of the Armenian version? (2.) As to his competency: Did he translate from his native language, or into it? Was his acquaintance with the tongue from which he translated familiar and established, or recent and imperfect? Does he falter at a term sometimes, or interpret the same phrase in different ways; loosely paraphrase, or pass over a word altogether, whether from carelessness, or want of an adequate acquaintance with its meaning? or does his work evince the accuracy of a good philologist, the correctness of the divine, enlightened on the analogy of the faith, and the resolute and indomitable industry of the conscientious interpreter? What, moreover, were the principles on which his task was elaborated? Did he purpose to translate ad verbum, or only ad sensum; a literal and bona fide translation, or a merely metaphrastic representation of the general meaning of the inspired writers?

5. The PRESENT STATE OF THE TEXT of any version will be a material point for consideration. Can the history of the text be ascertained? Is the version now as it was in its early days, or has it been altered by comparatively modern editors, whether from the original, or especially from other translations? as the Vulgate, for example; professed emendations from which, have destroyed the distinctive character of more than one ancient translation. There is a wide field for labour in this single region of biblical criticism; and much gratitude is due to such men as Winer, Roediger,† Rosenmüller, and Von Lengerke, §

*

* WINER on the "Targum of Onkelos."

+ De Origine et Indole Arabicæ Librorum V. T. Historicorum Interpretationis Libri duo: scripsit EMILIUS ROEDIGER, Philos. Dr. et Theolog. Licent., Halis Saxonum, 1829.

ROSENMULLER on the Persian Pentateuch.

§ Commentatio Critica de Ephremo Syro S. S. Interprete; qua simul Versionis Syriacæ quam Peschito vocant, Lectiones variæ ex

who have devoted their time and erudition to some departments of it.

From this rapid survey of the resources of the Bible student, under the head of ancient versions, the preeminence of the Peschito-Syriac will be at once discernible. Of the Old Testament in it, it is enough to remark, with Renaudot, who has given in a sentence the settled conviction to which the most extensive research will conduct us, that "the version which all the Syrians use in common was made from the Hebrew, and is, of all oriental translations, the most ancient."

The direct relation, also, of the Peschito New Testament to the original Greek, and that as exhibited in manuscripts of times long anterior to the age of the oldest now extant,—for even admitting that it was made, say so late as the third century, still, as the translators would naturally select the oldest manuscripts they could obtain, we are then brought back to the times of the apostolic autographs, the strong presumptive evidence arising from the consideration of the period when, and the region where, the work was accomplished; that the translators were men of the apostolical school, and conversant, it may be, with some of the apostles themselves; the extreme, yet elegant and erudite, simplicity which generally distinguishes the style, so faithful, yet so unrestrained; the sense of nature which pervades the narrative portions, showing that the pen was in the hand of a man who had personal remembrance of the places and scenes depicted; the profound theological spirit which reigns in the dogmatic portions of the work; and the

Ephramo Commentariis collectæ exhibentur. Auctore E. A LENGERKE, Phil. Dr. Halis Saxonum, 1828. To which we may add the work of HIRZEL on the "Syriac Pentateuch," and that of CREDNER on the "Minor Prophets," in the same version.