TO THE ENGLISH READER.

Had we been sitting together "on the Mount," listening to "Jesus the Nazarene," we should have heard from his lips his divine sermon in the Aramean tongue, or Palestinian Aramaic," then, and by the earliest ecclesiastical writers, called Hebrew. The oldest testimonies we have, inform us that the gospel "according to Matthew" was written in this language. Papias, Irenæus, Pantænus, Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome agree in this statement. Jerome says that "Matthew composed the gospel of Christ in the Hebrew language, and wrote it with Hebrew letters; but who the person was who afterwards translated it into Greek is not satisfactorily known." The first of these witnesses, Papias, was a disciple of Polycarp, and died in the earlier part of the second century. The last of them, Jerome, died A.D. 420. To what extent the other writings in the New Testament, except the epistles of Paul, were first composed and circulated in Greek is unknown. The Rev. S. C. Malan, in the preface to his elaborate and learned work on the Gospel according to S. John, says, "We can form no just idea of our Saviour's teaching and of his conversation by reading them in the Greek of the Evangelists, which he never spoke; but we must look for the real spirit of them in the venerable idiom of the Peschito." Peschito, that is "the simple, clear, or uncorrupted," is one of the earliest translations of the Greek text, but it is probable that several books were first known in the Palestinian Aramaic, or Syriac. The Apostles Peter and Paul addressed the people in the vernacular Hebrew, and the speech on the day of Pentecost, by

The

Peter, and the speeches before Felix and Agrippa, by Paul, we have only in a Greek translation. Paul's short but sublime discourse delivered at the Areopagus before the philosophers was in Greek. But whatever MSS. of Holy Scripture were written during the 1st century, whether autographs or transcripts, have perished; what MSS. were transcribed in the 2nd and 3rd centuries have likewise perished. Many causes contributed to their loss, but the chief cause was the rigid execution of the decrees published by Diocletian, A.D. 302-303, for the utter destruction of all the books and writings of the Christians throughout the Roman empire, with the view of rooting out the "superstition and annihilating the Christian Eusebius tells us: "I saw with my own eyes the houses of prayer thrown down and the inspired and sacred scriptures consigned to the fire in the open market place." The decree issued on the 24th February, A.D. 303, required the demolition of the churches of the Christians and the destruction of all their sacerd writings. The magistrates were compelled everywhere, under the severest penalties, to burn in public all the books and documents they could obtain, and to do it in "a solemn manner."

name.

If the autographs of the writings in the New Testament, and the earliest copies made from them were then in existence, it is probable they were consigned to the flames. We have no record of the number of copies, or parts of copies that escaped the fury of Diocletian, Galerius, and other official but inveterate enemies of the Christians. At length the persecution terminated A.D. 313. Constantine, after the defeat and death of Licinius, A.D. 324, reigned without a colleague, sole lord of the Roman empire. He died A.D. 337. During the interval between the two last mentioned dates,

Constantine wrote a letter to Eusebius, whom he had recalled from banishment A.D. 328. The following is

a copy of the letter from "The Life of Constantine," by Eusebius :

"Victor Constantinus, Maximus Augustus, to Eusebius.

"It happens through the favouring providence of God our Saviour, that great numbers have united themselves to the most holy church in the city which is called by my name. It seems therefore highly requisite, since that city is rapidly advancing in prosperity in all other respects, that the number of churches should also be increased. Do you therefore receive with all readiness my determination on this behalf. I have thought it expedient to instruct your Prudence to order fifty copies of the sacred Scriptures (the provision and use of which you know to be most needful for the instruction of the Church) to be written on prepared parchment in a legible manner and in a commodious and portable form by transcribers thoroughly practised in their art. The procurator of the diocese has also received instructions by letter from our clemency to be careful to furnish all things necessary for the preparation of such copies, and it will be for you to take special care that they be completed with as little delay as possible. You have authority also in virtue of this letter, to use two of the public carriages for their conveyance, by which arrangement the copies when fairly written will most easily be forwarded for my personal inspection, and one of the deacons of your church may be intrusted with this service, who on his arrival here shall experience my liberality. God preserve you, beloved Brother."

This letter was written probably about A.D. 330. The work was undertaken and completed under the

direction of Eusebius: and was acknowledged by Constantine in a second letter to Eusebius. Tischendorf in giving an account of the discovery of the Sinaitic MS. says, "The transcription of which is to be referred to the first half of the 4th century and about the time of the first Christian Emperor." The Rev. Frederick H. Scrivener in his critical introduction to a full collation of the Codex Sinaiticus with the received text of the New Testament (2nd Edit. p. xxxvII) says, "The coincidence of this MS. with certain readings known to have been approved by Eusebius, renders it very credible that Codex Sinaiticus was one of the 50 volumes of Holy Scripture written on skins in ternions and quaternions which he prepared A.D. 331, by Constantine's directions, for the use of the New Capital, and that would naturally contain the Canons he cherished with so much honest pride." If this be correct, it was written between A.D. 331 and 335, and is the oldest Greek MS. of the New Testament in existence. There are no MSS. of any of the versions so ancient. It is perfect as to the Canonical books, and it also contains the Epistle of Barnabas in Greek, and a part of the Shepherd of Hermas. The first 5 chapters of the Epistle of Barnabas were not known to be in existence in Greek until this MS. was discovered.

Our oldest copy therefore of the translation of the oral discourses and conversations of Jesus Christ, as well as the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles, dates some 235 years after the death of the Apostle John, accepting the chronology of his death (A.D. 100) to be correct. These simple facts should enjoin modesty and charity on all biblical critics and theologians when speaking of, or writing upon the text of holy scripture. The next MS. as to antiquity is the Codex Vaticanus,