Page:The Archko Volume (1896).djvu/39

Rh century there was another translation made, which is called the Codex, in the Latin language. There was one at Alexandria, one in the Vatican, and one at Sinai. Parts of these are preserved in the British Museum. They were presented to King Charles by Cyril Lucar, who was patriarch at Constantinople and had been patriarch at Alexandria, and brought these books with him. The Codex of Sinai is in the Greek, and is the same that Dr. Tischendorf found and was declared by the scholars of Leipsic to have been written in the fourth century.

In the year 748 of the Roman Empire and 330 of the Christian era Constantine the Great removed his seat of empire from Rome to Byzantium, and took with him all the records of the Christians to that city, as will be shown in a letter from him in this book in regard to having the Holy Scriptures in manuscript, and having fifty volumes bound and kept on deposit. When Mohammed took possession of Constantinople he had too much respect for these sacred scrolls to let them be destroyed, but had them all nicely cased and deposited in the St. Sophia Mosque. History informs us of the dreadful struggle that took place between the Greeks and Romans over the sacred parchments in the days of the Crusades; and it seems to us that Divine Providence has had something to do with the preservation of these sacred writings. These scrolls look more like rolls of narrow carpet wound round a windlass than anything else. But as I have