The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments

by E. E. Holmes

It is this Bible, the Church's Manual of doctrine and devotion, that we are to think of.

We will think of it under five familiar names:—

(I) The Scriptures.
(II) The Bible.
(III) The Word of God.
(IV) Inspiration.
(V) Revelation.

(I) THE SCRIPTURES.

This was the earliest name by which the Bible was known—the name by which it was called for the first 1200 years in Church history. It was so named by the Latin Fathers in the fifth century, and it means, of course, "The Writings". These "Scriptures," or "Writings," were not, as the plural form of the word reminds us, one book, but many books, afterwards gathered into one book.[[4]] They were a library of separate books, called by St. Irenaeus "The Divine Library"—perhaps the best and most descriptive name the Bible ever had. This library consists of sixty-six books, not all written at one period, or for one age, but extending over a period of, at least, 1200 years.

The original copies of these writings, or Scriptures, have not yet been discovered, though we have extant three very early copies of them, written "by hand". These are known as the Alexandrine manuscript (or Codex), the Vatican manuscript, and the Sinaitic manuscript. Where may they be found?

One, dating from the latter part of the fourth, or the early part of the fifth century, is in the British Museum—a priceless treasure, which comparatively few have taken the trouble to go and see. It is known as the Alexandrine manuscript, and was presented to Charles I by the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1628. It consists of four volumes, three of which contain nearly all the Old Testament, and parts of the Apocrypha, and a fourth, containing a large part of the New Testament.

A second manuscript, dating from the fourth century, is in the Vatican Library in Rome, and is, therefore, known as the Vatican manuscript. It contains nearly the whole of both the Old and New Testaments, and of the Apocrypha.

The third manuscript, dating also from the fourth century, is in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg. It was discovered by Prof. Tischendorf, in 1859, in a basket of fragments, destined to be burned, in the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai; hence it is called the Sinaitic manuscript.

These are the three earliest MS. collections of the Bible as yet discovered—and strange stories, of mystic beauty, and, it may be, of weird persecution, they could tell if only they could speak. Other manuscripts we have—copies of ancient manuscripts; versions of ancient manuscripts; translations of ancient manuscripts; texts of ancient manuscripts. So they come down the ages, till, at last, we reach our own "Revised Version," probably the most accurate and trustworthy version in existence.