Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 16.djvu/94

 TIMOTHY

78

VERSIONS

translated into Tibetan for the neophytes Cardinal Bellarmine's "Christian Doctrine" and Thurlot's "Treasure of Christian Doctrine". He compiled with the assistance of his confreres the first Tibetan dictionary, containing 35,000 words in Tibetan charac- ters with corresponding Italian translation. He also translated from Tibetan into Itahan "History of the life and works of Shakiatuba, the restorer of Lama- ism", "Three roads leading to perfection", "On transmigration and prayer to God" ("Anal. Ord. Cap.", VI, Rome, 1890, 349). These were the first translations made from Tibetan or from any Indian language into a European language. All remained unpublished, unless the Tibetan-Italian Dictionary "executed by some Roman missionary and collected and arranged by F. C. G. Schroeter of the (Protestant) Church Missionary Society and edited by J. Marsh- man of the Baptist Missionary Society at Serampore (India) in 1826, consisting of nearly 500 quarto pages" (Bagster, "Bible of Every Land", London, 1851, p. 17 sq.) is the afore-mentioned work com- piled by the Capuchin Fathers. The first printed dictionary and grammar of the Tibetan language is the "Alphabetum Tibetanum missionum apostoli- carum commodo editum" (Rome, 1762) by the Italian Augustinian Antonio Agostino Giorgi (d. 1797; cf. Cath. Encycl., VII, 285; Heimbucher, "Orden u. Congregationen", II, Paderborn, 1907, p. 202). "Much valuable information derived from notes and letters written by the Jesuit and Capuchin Fathers in Tibet is found in this work" (Rockhill, "Journey through Mongolia and Tibet", Washington, 1894, p. X, note). The origin of Tibetan studies among Europeans, generally accorded to the Hungarian savant Oosma de Koros (d. 1842), must be given to the Catholic missionaries and, above all, to the

Augustinian Giorgi. For a century after his time this study was cultivated only by some European scholars and a few Protestant missionaries, but their works, especially the Tibetan translation of the Bible by Protestant missionaries, owe much to the re- searches of the older Catholic missionaries. The zealous priests of the Foreign Missions, especially Renou (d. 1863) and Desgodins, took up the work of their predecessors.

Aimlecta Capuccinorum, VI (Rome, 1890), 349; Baujj- GARTN'ER, Gesck. der WeUliteratur, II (Freibvirg, 1902), 431, 443; Kalholische Misaionen (Freiburg, 1897), 170; HEiMsncHER, Die Orden u. Kongregationen, II (Paderborn, 1907), 399-400.

J. M. Lenhart.

Timothy and Titus, Epistles to (The Pas- TORALS). — Under date 12 June, 1913, the Biblical Com- mission gave the following answers to questions about these epistles: The tradition of the Church shows that they were written by the x\postle Paul himself and that they were always considered genuine and canonical. They were not made up from fragments of epistles or from lost Pauline epistles after St. Paul's time. The opinion on their genuineness has been in no way lessened by the difficulties advanced from the style and language of the author, from errors of the Gnostics, which are represented as current at the time, or from the state of ecclesiastical authority. They were written during the period between the Lberation of the Apostle from his first imprisonment and his death, since both history and ecclesiastical tradition, the testimony of the Eastern and Western Fathers, the abrupt conclusion of the book of the Acts and the Pauline Epistles \\Titten at Rome, es- pecially II Timothy, establish the truth of the opin- ion as to the two Roman imprisonments of the Apostle Paul.

Acta Aposlolica Sedis (26 June, 1913); Rome (5 July, 1913).

V

Vaison, Ancient Diocese of (Vasionensis). This was suppressed by the Concordat of 1801, and its terri- tory is now included in the Dioceses of Avignon and Valence. St. Albinus (d. 262) was incorrectly placed by the Carthusian Polycarpe de la Riviere among the bishops of Vaison. The oldest known bishop of the see is Daphnus, who assisted at the Council of Aries in 314. Others were: St. Quinidius (Quenin, 556- 79), who valiantly resisted the claims of the patrician Mummolus, conqueror of the Lombards; Joseph- Marie de Suares (1633-66), who died in Rome while filling the office of librarian of the Vatican, and who left numerous works. Vaison, the capital of the Voconces, was very important during the Celtic period and under the Roman domination; it belonged in turn to the Visigothic and Austrasian Kingdoms. The disputes which broke out in the twelfth century between the counts of Provence and the bishops, both of whom were in possession of half the town, were injurious to its prosperity; they were ended by a treaty negotiated in 1251 by the future Clement IV. The apse of the Church of St. Quenin seems to date from the eighth century; it is one of the oldest in France. As a whole the cathedral dates from the eleventh century, but the apse and the apsidal chapels date from the Merovingian period. St. Rustieala (b. at Vaison, 551 ; d. 628) was abbess of the monastery of St. Cicsarius at Aries. Two rather im- portant councils as regards Galilean ecclesiastical dis- cipline were held at Vaison in 442 and 529, the latter under the presidency of St. Cxsarius.

Gallia Christiana, iiom, I, (1715), 919-40, 1329-30, instr. 151-54; Duchesne, Fastes ipiscopaux, I, 2.54; Boyeb de Saivte-Marthe, Uistoirede Viqlise cathMrate de Vai«on (2 vols. Avignon, 1731) ; Cot'ktet, Notice historique et arch^ologiquf ,sur VaiHOnXnRemtcarchMnaiqHf.XnUiarA), 30G-22; Labanoe, La catMdrale de Vaison (Cuen, 1905). C.EORGES GOYAO.

Versions of the Bible, Coptic. — Dialects. — The Coptic language is now recognized in four prin- cipal dialects, Bohairic (formerly Memphitic), Fay- flmic, Sahidic (formerly Theban), and Akhmimic. The relative antiquity of these as Hterary idioms is much debated. But the fact is that no Bohairic manuscript and probably no Fayilmic manuscript is older than the ninth century, while some Sahidic and Akhmimic codices are apparently as old as the fifth and even the fourth century. In the ninth century Bohairic was flourishing, in Northern Egj-pt, particularly in the Province of Bohairah (hence its name) south-west of .-Alexandria and in the monasteries of the Desert of Nitria, while Sahidic was spread throughout Upper Egypt or Sahid (hence the name of Sahidic) inclusive of Cairo, having alreadj' super- seded FayAmic in the Province of Fa3'iim (ancient Crocodilopolis) and Akhmimic in the region of Akhmim (ancient Panopolis). Later (eleventh cen- tury?) when the Patriarch of Alexandria moved his residence from that city to Cairo, Bohairic began to drive out Sahidic and soon became the liturgical language of the Copts throughout Egypt.

Versions. — There are versions of the Bible in all four dialects. All of them are now incomplete, but there is hardly any reason to doubt that they once existed in their entirety. It is now considered certain that they were made independently and that their differences are to be traced to a difference between the Greek recensions from which they were translated. There is much discussion between specialists as to the age of the Coptic versions, especially as to which of them was made first. The present writer in his "fttude sur les versions copies de la Bible" (Revue biblique, 1897, p. 67) concluded that some Coptic version must have been in existence as early as the