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article. H;s feconj argiimmt is deduccil from a Saliidic 

 MS. wliich 13 probably of tlic focoiid centuiy, and which 

 contains various pafTas^fS both of the Old and New Tella- 

 nients, coincidinir with fome of the fragments of the Sahidic 

 veiTions. His third arjjiimcnt is founded on an apparent 

 coincidence of fome paftages in the fragments, with a manii- 

 fcr'pt containing two books of the fubrication of the Gnof- 

 tics, and evidentlj- written in the fccond century. It ap- 

 pears thi.n, if no objeftions can be n ade to thefe argument:;, 

 that proofs may be alleged of a higher antiquity in favour of 

 the bahidic verfion than can be produced in favor.r of any 

 other verfion of the New Tellament ; and it muft ot courfe 

 be of the greateft importance in the criticifm of the Greek 

 Teftamtnt. At the fame time it mult be acknowledged, 

 that the oldcft hillorical evidence for the high antiquity of 

 an Egyptian verfion u that ot Epiphanius and Theodoret ; 

 the former quoted by Semler in his " Apparatus ad Novi 

 Tcflamenti intcrpretationem," p. 64. ; the latter by Wil- 

 kins, in the " Prolegomena" to his Coptic New Tcftament, 

 p. 6. From an examination of the various readings furnifhed 

 by the above-mentioned fragments, it appears, that the (lory 

 of the aJulterefs, John, viii. i — 12. is not among them; in 

 the Adls of the ApolUes, ch. xx. 2S. the Sahidic verlion 

 coincides with thofc Greek MSS. which have xt^ioi', not S'.n; 

 in I Tim. iii. 16. they coincide with thofe which read O in- 

 ftead of 9;(>i : and l John ch. v. has the fixth and eighth 

 verfes ; but the feventh, which contains the tellimony of the 

 three heavenly witncffes, is abfent. We have an account of 

 the Sahidic verfion of the NewTellament in "FridericiMiin- 

 teri Commentatio de indole verfionis N. T. Sahidici, &c." 

 Hafnix, 1789, 4to. to which arc annexed fome fragments 

 of the New Teltament from manufcripts in the pofRflion of 

 cardinal Borgia. Some fragments of the Sahidic verfion of 

 the gofpels of St. Matthew and St. John have been like- 

 wife publifiied by Mingarelli in his " j^lgyptiorum codi- 

 cum reliquix, Venctiis in bibliotheca Naniana alTcrvatx," 

 Bonor. 1785, 4to. MSS. or rather fragments of MSS. of 

 the Sahidic verfion of the New Ttftameiit are preferved 

 ill the libraries of Rome, Paris, Oxford, Berlin, and Venice. 

 BiiiLES, Elhiop'ic. The Ethiopians have alfo tranflated 

 the Bible into their language. Chryfoftom, cited by Mi- 

 chaelis, fays, that the Ethiopians had in his time a verlion of 

 the Bible ; but his evidence is unfatisfaflory. Ludolf, in 

 his hiftory of Ethiopia, relates, that the Scripture was 

 tranflated into that idiom of the Ethiopic language, which 

 was at that time more peculiar to the inhabitants of Tigre, 

 from the Greek verfion of the LXX, according to a certain 

 copy ufed in the church of Alexandria, which the innumera- 

 ble various readings that are infcrted in the Englilh Polv- 

 glott Bible from one of the fame copies, plainly prove. As 

 for tine author, ard time i.f the tvanflation, he is unable to 

 afcertain cither ; but thinks it moft probable that it was be- 

 gun at the time when the HabefUnes, or AbylTinians, were 

 converted, or foon after, and that it was gradually per- 

 fefled, Mr. Bruce, in his " Travels," vol. i. p. 490, favs, 

 that the Abyffinian copy of the Holy Scriptures was, in 

 Mr. Ludolf's opinion, tranflated by Frumentius, a bilTiop 

 in the 4th century, who firll preached Chrillianity in Ethio- 

 pia ; but Ludolf has left the matter undecided. See Hill, 

 of Ethiopia, p. 262. ed. 1682. Mr. Bruce himfelf inclines 

 to this opinion. They divide the Old Tcftarr.cnt, fays I^u- 

 dolf, containing 46 books, into four principal parts, and mix 

 the apocryphal with the canonical. Walton, (Proles, xv. 

 p. 100.) fayf, that Gaulmin had an ancient MS. of the 

 whole Ethiopic Old Tcllament, which was dcpofited in the 

 royal library of Sweden. Mr. Bruce informs us, (vol. i. 

 p. 489. ) that he brought with him a copy of the Ethiopic 



BIB 



verfion of the O. T. which he has depofitcd in the Britidi 

 Mufeum ; but it does not appear that he brought a copy of 

 any part of the New. Indeed he fays, (vol. i. p. 493.) that 

 c;.pies of the whole N. T. are in that country very fcarce ; 

 that, except in the churches, he had never feen a finglc MS. 

 which comprehended all the parts of it ; and that even the 

 tianfcripts of the Gofpels were in the hands only of men of 

 the firft dillinaion. The' Ethiopic verfion of the N._ T. 

 contains the whole of it, divided, according to Ludolf, into 

 four feparate parts, viz. the Gofpels, the Afts, the four- 

 teen Epiftles of St. Paul, and the ftven Catholic EpilUes. 

 The Apocalypfe is added as an appendix, and entitled 

 " Abukalamiis." Scaliger refers the Ethicpx verfion to 

 the time of Juilinian, at which period he dates the conver- 

 fion of the Abyffinians: but Walton refers it to a much 

 earlier period, and not far diftant from the times of .the 

 Apoftles. Whoever was the tranflator of it, it appears to 

 have been taken immediately from the Greek : from the 

 frequent confufion of words which found alike in the Gieek, 

 but which have not been confounded by any other tranflator, 

 and from its agreement in many of its readings with the Alex- 

 andrine MS. and with the quotations of Origeii. Neither of 

 thefe cii'cumftances can appear extraordinary, as it was na- 

 tural for the inhabitants of Abyflinia to procure their copies 

 of the Greek Teftamcnt from Egypt. The tranflation of 

 the Gofpels is much fuperior to that of the Epiftles. This 

 verfion was firft publilhed at Rome, in 1548 and 1549, un- 

 der the pontificate of Paul HL but the editors, who were 

 natives of Ethiopia, had a very imperfeft MS. of the Adfs, 

 the chafms of which they were obliged to fupply from the 

 Vulgate. To this purpofe, Ludolf obferves, that the A£ts 

 of the Apoftles, for the mod part, were tranflated at Rome, 

 out of the Latin and Greek, for want of the Ethiopic ori- 

 ginal. This original feems to havebeen the fource from which 

 our editions of the Ethiopic verfion of the N. T. have 

 flowed ; and it is probably preferved in the Vatican, though 

 it has not yet been defcribed. Walton reprinted this Ro- 

 man edition in the London Polyglott ; but his copy, being 

 in fome places illegible, the editors filled up the deficiencies 

 according to their own judgment, fo that the Roman edition 

 retains the fame value, as if no other were extant. The La- 

 tin tranflation was made by Dudley Loftus, and correfted 

 by Callcll ; but it is of little worth, and has led Mill, and 

 other collectors of various readings, into error. A more accu- 

 rate Latin tranflation of the Ethiopic verfion has been pub- 

 lifiied by profeflbr Bode, under the following title, "Novum 

 Tellamentum ex verfione Ethiopici interpretis in Bibliis poly- 

 glottis Anglicanis cdltum ex Ethiopici lingua in Latinum 

 tranflatum," Brunfvigise. 1752, 1755. 2 toms. 4to. The 

 bell extrafts from the Ethiopic verfion, fays Michaelis, are 

 and mult be uncertain, becaufe we have no accurate impref- 

 fion of the verfion itfelf ; however, his editor (Dr. Marfli) 

 obferves, that if the Ethiopic verfion was made immediately 

 from the Greek, and in an early age; if its readings coincide 

 with the quotations of Origen, and the Greek MSS. of the 

 Alexandrine edition, it feems to be entitled to the fame pri- 

 vileges, as other verfions of equal antiquity. The principal 

 objection applies not fo much to the verfion itfelf, as to our 

 printed text, which is probably incorrtA, as not being the 

 rcfult of a collation of different MSS. But the fame objection 

 may be made to the old Syriac verfion, in which, though 

 various MSS. have been ufed fince the original edition of 

 Widmanllnd, the alterations that have been made dcferve 

 rather the name of corruptions than of improvements. Of all 

 the books of the O. T. there never was anv printed, but the 

 Pfalms and the Song of Solomon, in the Ethiopic language 

 at Rome, in 1513 ; at Cologn, in 1518, and finct that time, 



with 



