tively modern. The oldest manuscript of any part of this version is an Evangeliarium, in Cyrillic characters, of the year 1056. The first printed portion was an edition of the Gospels in Wallachia, in 1512; in 1575 the same portion was printed at Wilna; and in 1581 the whole Bible was printed at Ostrog in Volhynia. The general text is such as would have been expected in the ninth century; some readings from the Latin have, it appears, been introduced in places.

The ancient manuscripts of the Greek New Testament are numbered by the hundred. Some of them are essential to an accurate restoration of the Greek text; some others are most valuable helps ; while many are comparatively worthless.

These numerous hand-writings— which is the meaning of manuscripts, are so many witnesses as to the exact words that were penned by the writers of the Book. The oldest manuscript is, therefore, the most direct and reliable testimony.

They were written either on vellum or paper. The vellum was often tinted a bright purple. The paper was made from linen, and glazed. The letters are usually uncial, that is, capitals.

Some manuscripts were highly adorned, while in others the lettering is plain. Some, however, are in small letters.

The oldest manuscripts are written without accents or punctuation marks, and read in the same manner, and with similar appearance, as the following sentence in English: INTHEBEGINNINGGODCREATEDTHEHEAVENSANDTHE

EARTH.

Many of the manuscripts are what are called Palimpsests, or Codices Palimsesti—that is, rules or laws rubbed over and rewritten, or written upon. Before the invention of paper, the scarcity of parchment, or its expense, induced persons to rub out the writings on an ancient parchment and write their own works upon it. A French chemist discovered (by accident, it is said) a way to bring out the lower writing and make it legible without destroying the characters written over it. The parchment on which the first successful experiment was made, was the valuable

A Palimpsest Example from the Codex Guelpherbytanus, showing Luke i, 6,7. The black characters show the later manuscript, and the dotted letters the restored ancient writing.

CODEX EPHRAEMI. By the persistent efforts of the learned Tischendorf (who afterwards discovered the oldest known manuscript) this result was reached. The writing had defied all the efforts of his predecessors. "There lay," he says, "in one of the libraries of Paris, one of the most important manuscripts then known of the Greek version of the Old Testament, and the whole of the New. This parchment copy, the writing of which was of the date of the fifth century, had been retouched and renewed in the seventh, and had again in the ninth century, and in the twelfth century, been submitted to a twofold process: It had been washed and pumiced to write on it the treaties of an old father of the church of the name of Ephraem. Five centuries later [in the fifteenth] a Swiss theologian of the name of Wetstein had tried to decipher a few traces of the original manuscript; and later still, another theologian, Griesbach of Jena, came to try his skill upon it, although the librarian assured him it was impossible for mortal eye to discover a trace of a writing which had perished for six centuries. In spite of these unsuccessful attempts, the French Government had recourse to powerful reagents to bring out the effaced characters." These efforts failed. But at length, Tischendorf, with the aid of a French chemist, had the good fortune to decipher it completely, and even to distinguish the dates of the different writers who had been engaged on the manuscript.

There are many lacunce, or chasms in this valuable witness, and the disputed verse, I John v, 7, "There are three that bear record in heaven etc.,' is not in the text, but is written on the margin. II. THE CODEX ALEXANDRINUS. The Alexandrian manuscript, deposited in the British Museum, is a still more important witness. It was sent, as a present to King Charles I., from the Patriarch of Constantinople, in the year 1628, through Sir Thomas Rowe, the English Embassador. In a schedule annexed to it is a statement that it was written or copied by Thecla, a noble Egyptian lady, nearly fourteen hundred years ago. It is supposed that it was written between the middle and the end of the fourth century, soon after the Council of Nice. The beginning of the New Testament is wanting in the manuscript; so also is a portion of John from chapter vi, verse 50, to chapter viii, verse 52; and like

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Fac-Simile of the Codex Alexandrinus, Showing the Original of John i, 1-7.