Page:The ancient Irish church.djvu/137

 It has been generally assumed that the Irish Church had no translation of the Bible into the vernacular. Haddan and Stubbs say briefly, 'There is no trace of any Celtic version of the Bible.' This is a mistake. There is actually in existence a copy of such a version, contained in an old manuscript volume, known as the Speckled Book, at present preserved in the library of the Royal Irish Academy. O'Curry tells as that this Speckled Book 'appears to have been written by some member of the learned family of the Mac Ægans, about the close of the fourteenth century. It is not a transcript of any one book, but, as will be seen, a compilation from various ancient books, preserved chiefly in the churches and monasteries of Connaught, Munster and Leinster.' Amongst its contents are found 'a Scripture narrative from the Creation to Solomon; the birth, life, passion and resurrection of our Lord.' In another work he speaks of this part as a 'translation, or rather paraphrase of the Old Testament,' and he gives two examples. One of these he renders into English in the very words of the Douay version of Exodus xv. 20; and the other, which is taken from 1 Samuel xxv. 18, he translates, 'The woman gave him five sheep, and two hundred loaves, and two paits (leather bottles) of wine'—a rendering which represents in a fairly accurate way the original Hebrew. If these are to be taken as examples of the work, there can be no doubt that there was in early times a translation of the Bible into Irish; and in any case the book gives evidence that the facts of Scripture were presented to the people in the language that they understood.