Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - 1881.djvu/54

 xlvi INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

Rom. torn. i. 1860; torn. ii. pars 1, 1862; pars 2, 1864. Unfinished. A very important work, but, unfortunate- ly, without either the authorized or the corrected text. Fritzsche says (loc. cit. p. 458), "Even to-day there is wanting a text which answers the demands of science ; and Protestantism alone can and ought to accomplish this work, already too long neglected."

C. ^Ethiopic Version.

There must have been a call for a translation of the New Testament very shortly after Christianity entered Abyssinia. So, although the tradition which assigns it to Abba Salama (Frumentius), the first bishop, be unreliable, the version probably dates from the fourth century, as Dillmann as- serts. This scholar likewise praises the version for its fidelity and general smoothness. The New Testament has been edited by Thomas Pell Platt for the British and For- eign Bible Society (1826-30); but, unfortunately, it is al- most useless for critical purposes, because so dependent upon recent MSS. Gildemeister, professor in Marburg, collated some portions of the ^Ethiopia New Testament for Tischendorfs edition of 1859.

D. Old Egyptian, or Coptic, Versions.*

These are in the two dialects, the Thebaic or Sahidic, and the Afcmphitic or Baldric. They are, Bishop Lightfoot declares,f " entirely independent ;" the former is " rougher,

Aiyvirroe, and is applied to the Christian inhabitants of Egypt, who inherited the old Egyptian (demotic) language, together with their religion.
 * Copt is probably an Arabic transformation of the Greek

f He prepared the chapter on the Egyptian Versions in Dr. Scrivener's Introduction, pp. 319-357.

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