74 The Rev. Dr. Wall on the Nature, Age, and Origin of the 



dence in Rome to Abyssinian exiles, of whom great numbers were, about that 

 time, forced to leave their own country by Mohammedan persecution. Through 

 the advantage of such aids, a knowledge of this writing was soon obtained, and 

 parts of the Ethiopic translation of the Bible were printed in the Roman capital 

 under the superintendence of native Abyssinians ; the Psalms and Song of 

 Solomon, during the remarkable pontificate of Leo the Tenth,* and the New 

 Testament not many years after. Then followed from the press, in different 

 countries of Europe, grammars, lexicons, harmonies, in all of which, and also 

 along with the portions of Scripture first published, were given the Ethiopic 

 alphabet represented as a syllabary. From the parts of this version which were 

 printed, it was ascertained to be one of great antiquity, as it agrees with the 

 oldest known Greek copies of the Bible in many passages which are otherwise 

 written in less ancient MSS. Hence much attention was paid to the work, and 

 several of the most able scholars and divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth 

 centuries engaged in its examination ; but however they may have differed 

 among themselves upon other points, not one of them, as far as I can find, 

 ever dissented from the above representation of the nature of the Ethiopic 

 letters. To oppose such authority it is plain that a very strong case should be 

 made out ; but the Professor has offered nothing against it more than his own 

 opinion, which he did not support by any proof, nor indeed could he ; for the 

 slightest examination of the alphabet itself will be sufficient to show that his view 

 of the matter was totally erroneous. 



* It is but justice to Leo to state, that the part of this version which came out under his 

 auspices was much more accurately executed than the remainder of the original publication. This 

 will, I conceive, be clearly seen upon a comparison of the reprints of the two parts in Bishop 

 Walton's Polyglot Bible, in which the Psalms are given much freer from errors of the press than the 

 New Testament. 



