Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - 1881.djvu/49

 INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAS EDITI"V xli

there was an immediate demand for a Latin translation; while in the Roman Church the Greek language prevailed during the first and second centuries. Hcnco the name "Italic" or "Vctus Itala" is incorrect. Augustine (De Doctr. Christ, ii. 15) speaks of a translation which he calls the Itala, and which he preferred to all the others. This was manifestly a recension of the same Old Latin version, made or used in Italy.

This Old Latin version never attained to much author- ity ; the Greek being regarded as the authentic text, even in the early Latin Church. At the same time, the version is one of the most significant monuments of Christian an- tiquity, the medium of divine truth unto the Latin peo- ples for centuries, and of great value to the Bible critic by reason of its antiquity and literalness. The Apocryphal books of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Ba- ruch, Prayer of Manasseh, and 4 Ezra (2 Esdras) were, in a substantially unchanged form, embodied in the Vulgate. In the Old Testament the Psalms were similarly transferred.

There is still lacking a really trustworthy edition of the existing portions of the Old Latin version. For the New Testament there exist, however, more than twenty very an- cient but fragmentary MSS. of the Gospels, and some (im- perfect) of the Acts and the Pauline Epistles; while there is only one yet known of the Apocalypse, and but few frag- ments of the Catholic Epistles. The principal MSS. of the Gospels representing the African text are Codex Vercellen- sis (a), supposed to have been written by Eusebius, Bishop of Vcrcelli, cir. A.D. 365 ; Veronensis (b), of the fourth or fifth century ; and Colbertinus (c), at Paris, of the eleventh century, the only complete MS. Codex Brixianus (f), at Brescia, of the sixth century, represents a later revision,

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