[IV]
THE AMPLITUDE OF THE BIBLE IN MANUSCRIPT
Notwithstanding the more limited and the less reliable sources of literature (including the Bible) there was, nevertheless, substantial and even abundant material of a historical character from which to construct a bridge of the-continuous-history-of-literature over and beyond the gulf of the Dark Ages. The preservation and circulation of literature, not only sacred but profane as well, by means of written symbols, is not limited to one language, nor to mediæval times,—nor to the Christian Era—but reaches back into a remote age. Considering the slow and laborious process of book-making and the generally low stage of interest in literature throughout wide areas of the earth and for lengthy periods of time, the amplitude of the manuscript productions of the world, as evidenced in the ancient libraries and religious "houses" with their various utilities, is one of the marvels of history—a veritable wonder of the world.
Note an incident of the New Testament record which, within the realm of sacred literature, illustrates the process by which literature in general has been disseminated: We are informed in one of the books of the New Testament that, early in the fourth decade of the first century (on the first Pentecost after the crucifixion of Jesus), "there were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven." And in the effusion of the Holy Spirit which came upon them then and there, they exclaimed—amazed and bewildered—"How hear we every man, in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God." (The Acts 2:8-11.) As many as fifteen distinct nationalities and races were represented in this assemblage. It was, indeed, a cosmopolitan congregation and was composed of inhabitants from the then known world; and nothing is more probable than that representatives of those gathered at Jerusalem were among the "three thousand" added to that primitive company of believers on that occasion and that, when many of them went back to their native lands, they returned instinct with devotion to their new-found Master, and that, in their own respective and widely separated countries—under the impact of this new and inspiring hope which had been begotten within them at Jerusalem—they sowed the seed which bore the precious fruitage of evangelism in many lands throughout the early centuries of our Era. Indeed, the wide dispersion of the first Apostles and disciples of Jesus to the East, to the West, and to the South—into eastern Asia, into Europe, and into northern Africa—in the face of efforts to repress, and over obstacles and against contending forces everywhere, can best or only be accounted for on some such historical presupposition as is brought to our notice in the book of The Acts.
The first Apostles, in accordance with the terms of the Great Commission, were supernaturally endowed with "the gift of tongues" in order to be the message-bearers of the truth unto the nations. But this special endowment of Apostles did not extend to the peoples unto whom the revealed truth was sent nor, indeed, to their successors in commission. The recipients of the gospel message wrote and spoke in many languages and dialects, and thus there was created a need and demand for the word of God in the vernacular of many peoples. The many versions made, soon afterwards, into the different languages and dialects were the evidences of this demand and of its urgency and pertinency when the Apostles with their supernatural endowments were no longer accessible or available. In evidence of this fact we cite the career of the Apostle Paul. It is an established fact of history that the propagandist labors of Paul, within a little more than a quarter of a century, extended from Jerusalem, the capital of the religious world, to Rome, the seat of world-empire. This fact witnessed, indubitably, to the westward growth of the Christian Church. And we have traditions, literary, historical, and archæological evidences which indicate, conclusively, that others of the Apostles and early Christian teachers went eastward and southward from that common center at Jerusalem to Egypt and the shores of the Mediterranean and the Euxine; toward, if not unto, Babylon, Armenia, Hindustan, and the coasts of Ceylon. And in all these sections, over what may be called "the known world" of the time, these Christian propagandists—Apostles and disciples of Jesus—planted churches which, many of them for long after, became centers of evangelizing power.
The Apostles spoke and wrote in Greek, save as they were moved by the Holy Spirit and prompted by the needs of the people at Pentecost. But in every place whither the Apostles were sent and where converts to the Christian faith were gathered through their preaching, there remained the opportunity for and the need of the scriptures which had been the burden of the apostolic message, when these first propagandists of Christianity had passed on to other needy places. The after decline of the Greek language as the spoken tongue and the development or adoption of other tongues facilitated in consequence the multiplication of the scriptures or parts thereof, or communications from leaders and teachers, in the vernacular of different races or families of mankind. It is an interesting fact that, during the first three centuries of the Christian Era, and even when the Bible was interdicted, every Christian who could possess it tried to own at least some one book of the New Testament.
Furthermore, it is the fact sustained by scholarship and history that numerous versions of the scriptures were made, in the early Christian centuries, into other languages and dialects;—the Slavonic, Arabic, Persic, and Armenian tongues; earlier still into the Gothic tongue and the Ethiopic dialects of Abyssinia; and still earlier into the Coptic, Latin, and Syriac dialects. [It was the estimate of Gibbon, the historian of the Roman Empire, that there were probably six millions of avowed Christians when Constantine began to patronize Christianity in 313 A. D. And, allowing that there was one copy of the scriptures (of the New Testament or one of its books) to each three hundred Christians—not an extravagant supposition, considering what the sacred writings were to the early believers—there were probably not fewer than twenty thousand copies of the New Testament or individual books or their parts scattered throughout the world when Christianity came into royal favor in the Roman Empire.] These unnumbered copies in Greek—which long continued to be the spoken language for a large part of the world's population—together with the vast number of versions made from the original Greek into the languages and dialects of adjacent and contemporaneous peoples in order to meet the need of the first Christian Churches in wide areas of the Roman Empire, down to and after its fall, suggests the amplitude of the sacred writings in manuscript during the early centuries of our Era. This is proclaimed as from the house-top in the large and constantly increasing number of manuscripts, in different languages, which have been rescued as relics from an otherwise chaotic era. It is the estimate of Dr. Marvin R. Vincent that no fewer than 3,829 manuscripts have been discovered and catalogued. These have been gathered from many lands—Turkey, Egypt, the Ægean region, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, ancient Macedonia, Palestine, Africa, Spain, the Sinaitic Peninsula, Asia Minor, and in fact, from all Bible lands, and are preserved in the world's greatest libraries.
Professor Dobschütz summarizes the history of the versions and translations of the Bible, throughout the centuries to the invention of printing, as follows: "In the first period we found the Bible translated from the Greek into Latin, Syriac, Coptic; in the next period Gothic, Armenian, Georgian, Libyan, and Ethiopic were added, not to mention several revisions of former translations. About 600 A. D. the Bible was known in eight languages; in each of these there had been several attempts at translating. There were different dialects, too; in Coptic no less than five. The spread of Christianity in the next period is shown by the fact that the Bible is translated—and this again several times—into Arabic and Slavonic from the Greek, and into the German, Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, and French from the Latin—rather should I say, parts of the Bible, for it was only parts which people at this period tried to translate."[15] And he shows us how this movement to give the Bible to the people in their own vernacular spread—from the thirteenth century on until the invention of printing—into south-eastern France, over Italy and Germany, into England and Bohemia, and, possibly, into Scandinavia; and declares, truly, "it is like a net thrown all over Europe."