The Coptic has no passive voice, nor no verb corresponding to the exw of the Greek, but yet, being furnished with definite and indefinite articles, it is judged to be superior to the Latin or Syriac, in rendering the Greek.

The Coptic versions are of great worth in textual criticism. They exhibit a reproduction of the Greek text before it had suffered the numerous modifications that came into it, after the issue of the Hexapla of Origen. The learned Catholic, A. Schulte, has given us a critical edition of the Prophets. The celebrated reference of Matthew XXVII. 9-10, is found in both the Bohairic and Sahidic texts of Jeremiah.*

The Bohairic New Testament is purer than the Sahidic, which gives indication of its remoter date.

Mgr. Ciasca has made a critical study of the Sahidic version. He finds that it has felt the influence of the hexaplar text, and it is probable that the version as we have it, is a later recension, made to accord with some recension of the Greek text. The Sahidic New Testament, has been studied by Muenter. It is inferior to the Bohairic version.

The fragments of the Akmimian version, commonly called the Bashmuric fragments, were published by Bouriant. Krall has also given us a specimen of a fragment of the Minor Prophets. But it has not been studied sufficiently to judge of its critical value. The Fayoumian version and the version of Middle Egypt, which once were identified with the Sahidic version, must be considered as separate groups, but our knowledge of them is very imperfect.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE ETHIOPIC VERSION OF SCRIPTURE.

Concerning the evangelization of Ethiopia, Rufinus gives us the following data. Meropius, a philosopher of Tyre, set out on a voyage, having in mind to visit that region which in those days was called India. He brought with him two youths, Edesius and Frumentius, for whose education he was providing. Having concluded their observations, they set sail for their own country, and while passing the coast of Abyssinia,

*Iterum dixit Jeremias Pashori: Eritis aliquando cum patribus vestris repugnantes veritati, et filii vestri venturi post vos, isti facient iniquitatem magis abominandam quam vos. Nam ipsi dabunt pretium pro eo, cui nullum est pretium. Et nocebunt ei qui sanat morbos, et in remissionem peccatorum. Et accipient triginta argenteos in pretium ejus quem tradent filii Israelis. Et ad dandum id, pro agro figuli, sicut mandavit Dominus. Et ita dicent: Veniet super eos judicium perditionis in æternum et super filios eorum quia condemnaverunt sanguinem innocentem.

GG

they touched at a certain port for water and other necessary articles. The natives were at that time incensed against Rome, and they set upon Meropius and his crew and slew them. They spared the two youths, Edesius and Frumentius, whom they brought to the King. Edesius was appointed his cup-bearer; and Frumentius, his secretary. Forthwith the King held them in high honor, and love. At his death, he left the kingdom to his Queen and infant son. He gave Edesius and Frumentius their liberty. The Queen besought them, that they would remain and administer the kingdom till her son should come to that estate, in which he could sustain the burden of the office. She especially required the help of Frumentius, whose prudence all recognized. They remained, and Frumentius became regent of the realm. As they were both Christians, Frumentius began to make use of his great power by favoring the Christian merchants, who came to the kingdom to trade; and by his exhortation and active help, many churches were constructed, and many natives converted to Christianity. When the Prince came to his majority, Edesius and Frumentius set out for their own country. Edesius came to Tyre, and was made Bishop of that See. Frumentius went to Alexandria and laid before St. Athanasius, the Patriarch, the condition of the land, which he had left, and its need of a bishop and priests.

Athanasius, in a council of priests, elected Frumentius himself to be bishop of the strange country. He soon after received ordination and consecration from St. Athanasius, and returned to the scene of his first labors. The richest fruits rewarded his apostolic labors, and an immense number of the natives received the faith of Christ. Rufinus declares that he received these data from Edesius himself. (P. L. Migne, 21, 478.)

This would bring the evangelization of Abyssinia in the beginning of the fourth century. In that time Abyssinia formed the old kingdom of Auxuma.

When Constantius succeeded Constantine, he endeavored to move the King of Auxuma to expel Frumentius, and receive Arianism. This attempt failed, but in the sixth century, through the influence of the Monophysite Patriarchs of Alexandria, they fell into the Monophysite heresy, and there is little of orthodox Catholicity left in the country now.

The Ethiopians call Frumentius, Abba Salama. It is evident that he could make little progress in evangelizing the

country by means of Greek Scriptures, of which the people knew nothing. The data seem to warrant that Frumentius chose the Ghez dialect, which was spoken at the court and among the upper classes, and translated into this the Holy Scriptures. We believe, therefore, that the Ethiopic liturgy and version of Scripture go back to the fourth century. The Ghez dialect no longer prevails in Abyssinia. In 1300 the Amharic dialect began to supplant the old Ghez, and now the Amharic is spoken throughout the country. In the years between 1810 and 1820, Asselin de Cherville, the French consul at Cairo, translated, by the aid of Abou-Roumi, the Scriptures into Amharic. His version was purchased by the British Bible Society. J. P. Platt revised it, and published the Gospels in 1824. He published the whole New Testament in 1829, and the whole Bible in 1842. In 1875 the society published a new edition, under the supervision of Krapf and several Abyssinians.

An inspection of the Ethiopic text, clearly reveals that it was made from the Greek. Many difficult Greek words are left untranslated. Certain errors also are explained from a misapprehension of the Greek text. Evidences are found that more than one interpreter labored in the translation. The original interpreters followed the Greek text closely, and the edition would be of much critical worth in restoring the Greek text of that age, if it had come down to us incorrupt; but great freedom was used by later hands in interpolating many passages, so that a critical edition is necessary before the book shall be of any critical worth. Many believe that there were two editions of the New Testament. In the Old Testament, they recognize, 1.—The original version; 2.—A recension made from later Greek codices, which became the Ethiopic Vulgate; and 3.-A still later recension, made from the Hebrew text. Some, however, deny these later recensions, and believe that there existed only one version which has suffered interpolations and glosses.

No complete edition of the ancient text has ever been published. In 1513 John Potken published the Psalter and some canticles from the New Testament. In 1518 he published the Canticle of Canticles. In 1548 the New Testament was published at Rome. Some other unimportant and modern editions have been wrought, but the codices anterior to the fifteenth century have not been examined, and the outlook for the old text seems dark.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE GOTHIC VERSION.

The Goths were a Germanic gens who, in the second century, spread from the Vistula to the Danube. Some of them were converted in the third century to Christianity. Theophilus, the Gothic bishop, sat in the Council of Nice, and signed the decree of the Consubstantiality of the Son of God. In the fourth century, they were expelled from their lands by the Huns. They receded eastward, and took up their abode within the realm of the Byzantine Empire. As Arianism was in the ascendancy at the court of the Emperor, Valens, and in the realm, they soon lapsed into that heresy. Their bishop at that time was Ulphilas, of whose life we have only very uncertain details. Some believe that he first professed the orthodox Catholic faith and afterwards lapsed into Arianism to gain the favor of Valens. It is certain that he was a zealous promoter of Arianism among the Goths, and that it was he who gave them their version of Scriptures. This places the date of the Gothic version about the middle of the fourth century. It is asserted by Cornely that this version was employed also by some of the Catholic Goths. (op. cit.)

The Goths in that age had no alphabet. Ulphilas adopted the old Runic characters with some additions from the Greek.

Philostorgius testifies: "that Ulphilas translated into his mother tongue, all the books of Holy Scripture except the books of Kings, for the reason that these contain the account of wars, and the Goths naturally delight in warfare, and have more need to be held back from battles than to be spurred on to warlike deeds." (Hist. Eccles. XI. 5.) This seems improbable, and is disproven by the discovery by Mai, in 1817, in the Ambrosian Library, of a Palimpsest fragment of the Gothic text of Kings.

The version of Ulphilas was in universal use among the Goths, while they retained their individuality as a race, but later their language, and their version passed into oblivion.

In 1669, the Chancellor of Queen Christina of Sweden, Gabriel de la Gardie, presented to the University of Upsal several MSS., among which was one which is since known as the Codex Argenteus. Investigation proved it to be a Codex of the Gothic Gospels. It is called Argenteus, either because its binding is of massive silver, or because its letters are of silver.

Some have maintained that the victorious Gustave Adolph sent the Codex to Sweden with other booty, that he took from the libraries of the Jesuites at Riga, Brunsberg and Oppenheim.

Battifol denies this. Junius, who first published the MS. in 1665, testifies, that it was in the possession of Isaac Vossius, the celebrated librarian of Queen Christina. Toward the close of the fifteenth century, the Codex was in the library of the monastery of Werden, near Düsseldorf, where Morilloni saw it, and copied from it the Gothic text of the Lord's Prayer, which Becanus published in 1569. We next find it at Prague in 1601, whence it was taken by the Swedes in the war of 1648. Marshal Königsmark gave it to Queen Christina. It originally contained the four Gospels in the order of Matthew, John, Luke, Mark, but it has suffered serious mutilations. It is written in uncial characters.

The Codex Argenteus, is the most important portion of Gothic Scripture preserved to us.

Some fragments of the Gothic version of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans were discovered by M. Knittel, in the year 1756, in a Codex Rescriptus belonging to the library of the duke of Brunswick at Wolfenbüttel: they were published by him in 1762, and reprinted in 1763, in 4to., at Upsal, with notes by Ihre. The Brunswick manuscript, which is on vellum, and is supposed to be of the sixth century, contains only the following passages, viz. Rom. XI. 33-36; XII. 1–5, 17–21; XIV. 9– 20; XV. 3-13. The version of Ulphilas is in one column, and a Latin translation in the other. It is on Vellum, and is supposed to be of the sixth century. In the eighth or ninth century, the Origines Isidori Hispalensis were written over the translation of Ulphilas; and the ink had became so exceedingly pale, as not to admit of deciphering the original manuscript without great difficulty.

In the year 1817, a most important discovery was made among the Codices Rescripti, in the Ambrosian library at Milan, by signor Angelo Mai. While this indefatigable explorer of ancient literature was examining two Codices Rescripti in the Ambrosian library, he was surprised with the discovery of some Gothic writing in one of them; which on further investigation proved to be fragments of the books of Kings, Ezra, and Nehemiah. The discovery thus auspiciously made stimulated him to further inquiries, which were rewarded with the discovery of four other Codices Rescripti containing portions of the Gothic version. He now associated in his researches