Page:Gospel of Saint John in West-Saxon.djvu/18

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The West-Saxon version of the Gospels was made somewhat near the close of the Anglo-Saxon literary period, in the south of England where the centre of literary activity had been fixed in the reign of Alfred the Great. About equally near the beginning of Anglo-Saxon literature, in the north of England, the illustrious Bede (or Bæda) was engaged, at the time of his death ( 735), in translating into the language of the people, 'for the benefit of the Church of God,' the Gospel of St. John. An interval of more than two and a half centuries thus separates this first attempted version of the fourth Gospel and that which happily survives. All that is now known, and perhaps ever can be known, of Bede's translation is contained in what is accepted to be an authentic account of it in a letter written by Cuthbert (afterwards Abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow), a disciple of Bede, to his co-disciple Cuthwin. The earliest surviving copy of Cuthbert' s letter, a MS. of the ninth century, in the library at St. Gallen, contains the specific statement that Bede's translation extended from the beginning of St. John's Gospel to the place where it is said, 'but what are they among so many' (vi, 9). This reading is supported by other MSS. A second division of the MSS.