B I B 



B I B 



with coireiJlions and emendations, by Wulton, in the Lon- 

 don Polyglott. > 



Bibles, ^rmcn'ian. There is a very ancient Armenian 

 verfion of the whole Bible, done from tlie Greek of the 

 IjXX, by forae of their dodlors, about the time of St. 

 Chryfoftom. See Armenian 'Uirfion. The firll printed 

 edition of the Armenian verfion was publifhed in the 17th 

 century by Ulcan, biihop of Erivaii ; bccaufe the Bible was 

 at that time become fo fcarce in Armenia, that a fingle copy 

 coft 1200 livres. Hence a council of Armenian bilhopa af- 

 fembled in 1662, ordered the Bible to be printed in Europe. 

 Accordingly, three diilinct editions were printed at Amfter- 

 dam ; the firil in 1666, containing bjl'a the O. and N. T. 

 in 4to. a fecond, in 166S, includinir only the N. T. in 8vo. 

 and a third, in 1698, in izmo. The two firft were printed 

 under the direftion of Ufean ; but the la!l is the moll beau- 

 tiful edition. A complete defcriptioii, particularly of the 

 firft of thcfe editions, is given in Le Long. Bib. facia, ed. 

 Mafch. P. II. vol. i. p. 173—176, 180. A lift of Arme- 

 nian MSS. of the N. T. is given in Dr. Boerner's edition of 

 this work, P. i. p. 280, or vol. i. p. 138, of the Paris edi- 

 tion of 1725 ; fee alfo vol. i, p. 76, of the Catalogus MSS. 

 Bib. Regise, and note 1 1 to (J 3. chap. vii. of Marfli's Mi- 

 chaehs. La Croze and G. Whifton have acccnfed the edi- 

 tor of the above-mentioned edition of having corrupted, in 

 fome places, the Armenian text. It is certain, however, 

 fays Michaelis, that i John v. 7. was not in his MS. ; for San- 

 dius declares, that he had feen the MS. from which the 

 Amfterdam edition was printed, and that it wanted that 

 verfe. Sandius, in the place referred to by Michaelis, fpeaks 

 of one ancient MS. which he had feen, in poneffion of the 

 bifhop of the Armenian church, and which had been collated 

 at Amfterdam, in which this paffage did not occur. It is 

 poflible, however, and even probable, that Ufcan had more 

 than one MS. and the words of Sandius do not imply the 

 contrary. Neverthclefs, we have pofitive evidence, that Ar- 

 menian MSS. written before the time of tlie council at Cis, 

 in 1307, have not this verfe. In like manner, John v. 4. is 

 wanting in the Armenian MS. but infcrted in Ufcan's edi- 

 tion ; and La Croze obftrves, that Ulcau himfelf acknow- 

 ledges, in his preface, that he had altered fome paffages from 

 the Vulgate ; not, as he candidly allows, with an intention 

 to deceive, but from ignorance and fuperllition. 



Bible, Gi'o.'^/'a/i. The Georgian verfion was firft print- 

 ed at Mofcow, in 1743, fol. and a defcription of it is given 

 by the learned Eichorn, in his " Allgemeiiie Bibliothek," 

 or Univerfal Hiftory of Biblical Literature, vol. i. p. 153 — 

 169. From the defcription it appears, that the Georgian 

 text was altered from the Slavonian, in the edition of Mof- 

 cow, and it would therefore be of little value in the criticifm 

 of the N. T. Two MSS. of the Georgian verfion of the 

 Gofpels are prefervcd in the Vatican. See Le Long, Bib. 

 Sacr. torn. i. p.140. ed. Paris, 1723. 



Bibles, I'erftan. Some of the Fathers feem to fay, that 

 all the Scripture vvas formerly traiiflatcd into the language of 

 the Perfians ; but we have nothing now remaining of the 

 ancient verfion, which was, certainly, done from the Septua- 

 gint. The Perfian Pentateuch, printed in the London Poly- 

 glott is, without doubt, the work of Rabbi Jacob, a Perfian 

 Jew, furnanied Tavofus, Tavufius, or Tufius, from the city 

 Tus, where the Jews had a famous academy. It was tranf- 

 lated from the Hebrew text, for the ufe of the Jews, who 

 lived in Perfia, and printed in the Hebrew charafter, with 

 the Hebrew text, and with the verfion of Onkelos and Saa- 

 dias, at Conftantinople, in 1551. From the collation of this, 

 with other verfions, we may deduce a fatisfaftory explana- 

 tion of the famous prophecy of Jacob concerning the advent 



of the MefTiah, unperverted by the glofTts of the Rabbins 

 We have likewife two Perfic verfions of the four GofpeLi, of 

 which the moft ancient, and tliat which is of courfe the molt 

 valued by the learned, is printed in the London Polyglott, 

 accompanied with a Latin tranflation by Dr. Sam. Clarke, 

 and notes by Dr. Thomas Greaves, contained in the appen- 

 dix. This Perfic verTioa of the four Gofpels, which is the only 

 part of the N. T. hitherto printed, was taken from a M.S. in 

 the poficflion of Dr. Pococke, and written in the year 1341, as 

 appears by a declaration annexed to it. A new Latin tranf- 

 lation has been publiHied by profeffor Bode, at Hclmftadt, in 

 1750, 1751, with a preface containing hiftorical and criti- 

 cal remarks on the Perfic verfion. Dr. Greaves has very 

 juftly obferved, that tlie Perfic is a tranflation of the Syriac, 

 for it fometimes retains even Syriac words, and fubjoins a 

 Perfic interpretation ; and in other places confounds the 

 meaning of words, that have a fimilar found only in the Sy- 

 riac. This is likewife probable in itfelf ; for the Chriftians, 

 who lived fcatttred in tiie Perfian empire, made ufe of Sy- 

 riac as the language of the church, and as the language of 

 literature ; and it was common for the Perfians to ftudy in 

 the fchools of Syria, efpecially at Edefl'a. The principal 

 ufe then of the Perfic verfion is in difcovering the falfe read- 

 ings that have crept, fince that period, into the Syriac. It 

 might be added, that the Perfic omits paffages, that are 

 wanting in no MS. or verfion except the Syriac ; as 

 Matth. xxvii. 46. Mark. vii. 34. There is another Perfic 

 verfion of the Gofpels, which Abraham Wheeloc began to 

 print in 1652, and which was finiftied after his death by 

 Pierfon, in 1657. It was publilhed in London, and three 

 MSS. were ulcd by the editors. Walton, in his "Prolego- 

 mena," xvi. 9. p. 102, informs us, that he knew of only 

 three JNISS. of the Perfic Gofpels, one in the poffeffion of 

 Dr. Poeocke, which he ufed, and the other two in the 

 libraries of Oxford and Cambridge, different from the other, 

 and lefs ancient. If this be the cafe, Wheeloc muft have 

 ufed MSS. containing diftinft verfions, and his text muft be 

 of a m.ixed nature, and of lefs value in that refpe£>, as well as 

 in point of antiquity, than that of the Polyglott. Wheeloc, 

 or rather Pierfon, whofe name is prefixed to the fecond title 

 page, was of opinion, that this Perfic verfion was made 

 from the Greek; but Renaudot believed it to have been 

 taken f.om the Syriac. Walton mentions two Perfian ver- 

 fions of the Pfalms, that were made in the I7thcentu:y 

 from the vulgar Latin. 



Bibles, Gothic. It is generally faid, that Ulphilas, a 

 Gothic biihop, who lived in the fourth century, made a ver- 

 fion of the whole B'ble, for the ufe of his countrymen. 

 Philoftorgius (Hill. Eccles. 1. ii. c. 5.) afferts, that Ulphi- 

 las omitted the book of Kings, from an appreheiifion, that 

 the martial fpirit of his nation might be roufed by the rela- 

 tion of the Jewifh wars; yet this opinion has been confuted 

 by Knittel, in his learned commentary, § 255. Michaelis, 

 who was once a ftrenuous advocate for the opinion, that this 

 was a Frankilh verfion, has fince changed his mind, and in 

 the laft edition of his Int. to N. T. vol. ii. p. 130. ed. 

 Marlh, expreftes his convidion that it was Gothic. For an 

 account of the author, fee Ulphilas ; and to the account 

 already given of this verfion under the article Argenteus 

 Codex, we ftiall here fubjoin the following particulars. From 

 the martyrology of Nicctas, preferved by Simeon Mctaph- 

 raftes, it appears, that this verfion was made immediately from 

 the Greek. Befides, independently cf this evidence, it is 

 natural to conclude, that a native Cappadocian, who was 

 biihop of a nation in the neighbourhood of Conllantinople, 

 and was fent ambafiador to the Greek emperor, would tranf- 

 late from the original Greek, with which he was much bet- 

 ter 



