17. In the same Library, Cod. Arm. VIII. Membranaceus, litteris uncialibus scriptus.
(3) The Ethiopic Version (Eth.).
The Ethiopic translation of the Bible is assigned by Guidi to the end of the fifth, or beginning of the sixth century, the time at which Christianity became the dominant religion in Abyssinia. That religion after a period of decadence began to flourish again in the twelfth century, but in dependence on the Patriarchate of Alexandria. The two principal classes of Ethiopic Biblical MSS. are connected with these periods respectively; the first class being derived from the Greek text before, and the latter after the Alexandrian recension. The corrections, however, vary in different copies, and appear to be the result of desultory rather [pg 155] than of systematic alteration. The MSS. of the Ethiopic N. T. are rarely complete; ordinarily the Gospels, the Epistles of St. Paul, and the Catholic Epistles with the Acts and the Apocalypse constitute separate volumes. The oldest copy of the Gospels would seem to be no. 32 of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, written in the reign of Yekūnō Amlāk; whereas MS. 33 of the same collection represents the later text. Examples of the different recensions are given by Guidi, Atti della R. Academia dei Lincei: Classe di scienze morali &c., iv. 1888, from whom most of the above statements are taken.
Copies of the N. T., especially of the Gospels, are to be found in most collections of Ethiopic MSS.; see especially Wright, Ethiopic MSS. of the British Museum, pp. 23-39, and Zotenberg, Catalogue des MSS. Éthiopiens de la Bibliothèque Nationale (nos. 32-48; in the preface to this latter work a list of other collections are given); also Dillmann, Abessinische Handschriften der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin (no. 20, the four Gospels; 21, the Gospel of St. John); D'Abbadie, Catalogue Raisonné de MSS. Éthiopiens (Paris, 1859; nos. 2, 47, 82, 95, 112, 173, the four Gospels; no. 119, St. Paul's Epistles; no. 164, Catholic Epp., Apoc., and Acts); Dillmann, Catalogus MSS. Aethiop. in Bibliotheca Bodleiana, nos. 10-15; Fr. Müller, Aethiop. Handschriften der K. K. Hofbibliothek in Wien (Z. D. M. G., xvi. p. 554, no. v, the Gospels; no. vi, St. John's Gospel); “Bulletin Scientifique de S. Pétersbourg,” ii. 302 (account of a MS. of the Gospels in the Asiatic Institute at St. Petersburg), iii. 148 (account of a MS. of the four Gospels, bearing the date 78 = 1426 a.d., in the Public Library at St. Petersburg, and another of St. John's Gospel).
The Ethiopic N. T. was first printed in Rome, 1548, cum epistola Pauli ad Hebraeos tantum, cum concordantiis Evangelistarum Eusebii et numeratione omnium verborum eorundem. Quae omnia curavit Fr. Petrus Ethyops auxilio priorum sedente Paulo iii. Pont. Max. et Claudio illius regni imperatore (edition of Tasfā Sion). The remaining thirteen Epistles of St. Paul were printed in 1549. This edition was reproduced in the London Polyglott. Another was issued by T. P. Platt (for the Bible Society) in 1830, reprinted 1844 and 1874. These editions are based on MSS. containing mixed recensions, and are therefore of no critical value.
(4) The Georgian Version (Georg.).
The Church of the Iberians was founded during the reign of Constantine according to tradition; though, if we consider how intimate and frequent had been from a much earlier period their intercourse with the Greeks, we may safely infer that the seeds of Christianity had been long before sown among them. There is no certain evidence of the date at which they translated the Scriptures; but it is probable that their version of the New Testament was made in the fifth and sixth centuries; and that it was made from a Greek text the most perfunctory examination suffices to prove. According to Armenian historians of the fifth century, St. Mesrop, at the same time that he invented the Armenian characters and made the Armenian version for his own countrymen, fulfilled the same service for the Georgians also. In this tradition, however, the Georgians do not concur; and, no doubt, rightly, seeing that their ancient alphabet and their version are alike independent of the Armenian. It is said by some native Georgian scholars that before the tenth century a revision was made of their version, in order to make it more complete.
The present writer knows of no manuscript of the entire Bible in Europe except at Mount Athos, where there is one reputed to be of the tenth century. Others are preserved in the Convents of the Holy Cross at Jerusalem, and of Mount Sinai. In the Vatican Library there is a codex of the New Testament, neatly written on parchment in majuscule, parts of which the present writer has collated with the printed text. This codex is at least as old as the thirteenth century, and in the collations below is referred to as a. Beside this codex the writer has examined in the Georgian Library at Tiflis three very ancient codices of the Gospels, written in uncials on parchment. These books were smaller in size than are, as a rule, the copies of the Gospels used in Eastern Churches.
Of the accompanying collations, nos. i-iv are made from them, and the passages collated were photographed by the present writer. These photographs, which represent the originals on a reduced scale, have been deposited by him in the Bodleian Library for the inspection of the curious. The text referred to as b is probably of the tenth century or earlier; the one referred [pg 157] to as c cannot be much later than the eleventh, while that indicated by d must belong to the twelfth, and is the most beautifully written of them.
The Bible was not printed in Georgian until the year 1743 at Moscow in large folio. It is a rare volume, and has never been reprinted. The character is that called ecclesiastical or priestly majuscule, which differs wholly from the civil characters and can, as a rule, be read by the priests only. The New Testament and Psalms have been reprinted at various times from this original edition, both in priestly and civil characters, and of the latter kind very good and cheap copies can be obtained at the British and Foreign Bible Society, printed, however, at Tiflis. It is said that the edition of 1743 was conformed to the Slavonic version of the Bible; and if this were true, it would, of course, impair its value for critical purposes. Of this statement, however, the writer's collations, so far as they go, afford no proof. Such variations as there are between the printed edition and the manuscript texts are notified in these collations. The point, however, could easily be settled by a thorough comparison of the printed text with the Slavonic.