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at Paris-a fac-simile of which was edited by Tischendorf, Leip. 1843), and C. Cantabrigiensis, or C. Beza (given by Beza to the university of Cambridge, a fac-simile being issued by Th. Kipling, 1793). Of these, the Codex Vaticanus is considered to be the oldest, but Tischendorf, in 1859, brought before the notice of biblical scholars a Sinaitic MS., which he believed to belong, 'beyond a doubt, to the first half of the 4th c., and to be, therefore, the oldest now extant in the world.' Of this MS. a facsimile edition of 300 copies was produced in 1861. An English Edition of the N. T. was published by Tauchnitz in 1869 with foot-note readings from the above Cordexes.

The earliest division of the New Testament into verses of which we read is that made by Euthalius, Deacon of Alexandria, 462 a.d. He arranged those words that were related to each other by the sense into stichoi or lines. Subsequently, to save space, a colon or point was substituted, until, finally, a complete system of punctuation arose. In the 13th c., as we have already seen, the division into chapters took place, and in the 16th the versicular division was perfected by Stephens. The arguments or contents prefixed to the several chapters are also of modern origin.

Christians. It originally included only the canon of the Old Testament, and was probably the work of some Christian author or authors-though Simon, Frankel, and others maintain that the Pentateuch must have been translated by a Jew-living near the close of the 2d c. It was undoubtedly executed from the original Hebrew text, to which it closely adheres. Several Arabic versions were founded on the Peshito.-5. The later Arabic versions, executed during the middle ages, partly from the Hebrew text, and partly from the Samaritan Pentateuch.6. The Persian translation of the Pentateuch, made by a Jew named Jacob, not earlier than the 9th c.-7. The Latin Vulgate (q. v.).

Anong ancient versions of the New Testament we may notice three in Syriac: the first is the Peshito, with a twofold secondary translation of the four gospels into Arabic and Persian. It does not, however, contain 2d Peter, 2d and 3d John, Jude, or the Apocalypse, which, at a later period, were classed among the antilegomena, or disputed books. The second, or Philoxenian, prepared in 508, under the direction of Philoxenius, Bishop of Hierapolis. It no longer exists, but a counterpart of it does, in the translation made in the following century (616 a.d.) by Thomas of Harkel or Heraclea, the successor of Philoxenius. The best MS. of this version is one which belonged to Ridley, and is now in the archives of the new College, Oxford. It includes all the books of the New Testament excepting the Apocalypse. The style is slavishly literal. It was edited by White, Oxford, 1778. The third, or JerusalemSyriac version, preserved in a Vatican MS. of 1030, but which is probably a copy from an older version of the 7th c. With the above Syriac versions we may class the Ethiopic translation; the Egyptian duplex version, made probably in the latter part of the 3d c., and of considerable critical value; the Armenian, Georgian, Persian, and CopticArabic. Besides these may be mentioned the old Italic; the Vulgate by Jerome; the Gothic translation by the Arian Bishop Ulphilas (about the middle of the 4th c.), of which the most famous MS. is preserved in the library of Upsal, in Sweden (this has only the four gospels, and not even these in fect condition); the various Anglo-Saxon versions of parts of Scripture, which seem to have been executed during the years 709-995 A.D.; and the Slavonic.

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B. Versions or Translations.-These may be divided into ancient and modern. The ancient translations of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew may be classed as follows: 1. Greek. -The earliest of these is the Alexandrine or Septuagint (q. v.), after which come respectively the translations by Aquila (q. v.), Theodotion (q. v.), and Symmachus (q. v.). The whole of these, with fragments of others by unknown authors, were given by Origen in his Hexapla (q. v.). The Versio Veneta, a Greek translation of several books of the Old Testament, made in the 14th c., and preserved in the St. Mark's library, Venice, was published by Villoison at Strasburg, in 1784. Several early versions were also based on the Septuagint; but for that reason do not possess an independent value, being for the most part simply translations of a translation. Among these may be mentioned the old Latin version or Italic (q. v.), improved by Jerome (382 A.D.); the Syriac, including the Versio Figurata, made some time before Christ, but only partially preserved and collated by Jacob of Edessa, in the beginning of the 8th c.; and that by Paul, Modern Translations.-During the middle ages, Bishop of Tela (617 A.D.); the Ethiopic, made by when the laity were considered by the priesthood certain Christians in the 4th c.; the duplex Egyptian unfit to be intrusted with the B. as a whole, various (3d or 4th c.), the one being in the language of poetical versions-such, as the Gospel History, by Lower Egypt, and termed the Coptic or Memphitic, Otfried von Weissenburg, and the version of Job and the other in the language of Upper Egypt, and of the Psalms by Notker-Labco (980 A.D.)and termed the Sahidic or Thebaic; the Armenian, served a very important object, and stimulated the by Miesrob and his pupils in the 5th c.; the Geor- desire for more biblical information. As early as gian, of the 6th c.; the Slavonian, commonly 1170, Petrus Waldus caused the New Testament ascribed, but for unsatisfactory reasons, to the to be translated into the Provençal dialect by missionaries Methodius and Cyrillus in the 9th c.; Etienne d'Anse. This important work was followed lastly, several Arabic translations of the 10th and by the translations made under Louis the Pious 11th centuries.-2. The Chaldaic translations or (1227) and Charles the Wise (1380), the B. His Targums. These had an early origin; but, with tory (Bible ystorieus) by Guyars of Moulins (1286), the exception of those of Onkelos, and Ben Uzziel, the Spanish version under Alfonso V. in the 13th are unsatisfactory in a critical point of view. See c., the English by Wickliffe, and the Bohemian TARGUM.-3. The remarkably literal translation version of John Huss. After the invention of into the Aramaic dialect of the later Samaritans, printing-especially after the latter part of the of the ancient copy of the Pentateuch, possessed by 15th c.-the harbingers of a new ecclesiastical era the Samaritans, and supposed to be derived from appeared in numerous republications of the translated MSS. in use among the Israelites in the days of B.-the Bohemian (Prague, 1448); the Italian, by Rehoboam. It is of unknown age and authorship, the Benedictine Nic. Malherbi (1471); the French, but certainly older than the 3d c. after Christ. by Des Moulins (1477-1546); the Dutch (Delf, The later Samaritans conceived Nathanael, the high- 1477); the Spanish (1478-1515); but, above all, in priest, to be the author (20 B.C.), while Gesenius con- the seventeen German translations before Luther, siders it to have been executed shortly after the time of which five were printed before 1477, and the of Christ.-4. The Church translation; known as the remainder in the Low-German dialect during 1477-. Peshito ('true or literal'), received by all the Syriac | 1518.

Luther's translation of the B. is universally | layman belonging to the Inner Temple, published esteemed by the best German scholars as a master- an edition, the text of which is based on that of piece of general interpretation. It displays qualities far superior to those ordinarily expected in a translation--deep insight, true sympathy with the tone of the Hebrew Scriptures, and a perfect command of clear, popular language; indeed, every one who can thoroughly appreciate the merits of this great work, will be ready to excuse the boldness of the assertion, that 'it was rather a re-writing than a mere translation of the B.,' a transfusion of the original spirit into a new language, rather than a mere version of the letter. The New Testament was finished by Luther at Wartburg, and appeared in September 1522. In the following year, the five books of Moses appeared; and, in 1534, the remaining part of the Old Testament canon was completed along with the Apocrypha. With wonderful rapidity, this translation was circulated throughout Germany. In the course of forty years, one bookseller, Hans Luft of Wittenberg, sold 100,000 copies; an astonishing number, when we consider the price of books in the 16th c. It was reprinted thirty-eight times in Germany before 1559, and meanwhile, the New Testament had been separately printed in seventytwo editions. Numerous other translations in Dutch, Swedish, &c., were based upon the work of Luther.

English Translations of the Bible.-England was very late in commencing to print even portions of Scripture. Long after Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Holland, and other countries, had issued vernacular versions of the B., that land continued to sit in darkness. The earliest attempt was a translation of the seven penitential psalms in 1505. No doubt, a very considerable number of MSS. circulated among the people; but still we may well ask: 'What were these among so many?' Such a question the noble martyr, William Tyndale (q. v.), seems to have put to himself, and bravely he answered it, vowing that if God would spare his life, ere many years he would cause the boy who driveth the plough to know more of the Scriptures than did all the priests.' To accomplish his purpose, he passed over to the continent. Before 1526, he had completed an English translation of the New Testament, which appeared 'both in quarto and duodecimo. In the beginning of 1526, the volumes were secretly conveyed into England, where they were bought up and burned, which, however, only stimulated Tyndale to greater exertions. Of the admirable character of his translation, we have a sufficient testimony in this fact, that in our present version a very large portion of the New Testament is taken almost verbatim from Tyndale's Testament. Tyndale next proceeded to prepare a version of the Old Testament out of the original Hebrew, and in 1530, he published the Pentateuch, aud in the following year, the book of Jonah. The first English version of the whole B. was that published by Miles Coverdale, a friend of Tyndale. It is dated 1535, and dedicated to Henry VIII., but where printed, is unknown. It is much inferior to Tyndale's. The next English B. issued was called Matthew's B., from the circumstance that the editor assumed the name of Thomas Matthew, but was simply Tyndale's version revised by his friend John Rogers, who also translated those books in the Old Testament which the martyr had not been able to overtake. It was finished in 1537, and Cranmer obtained for it the patronage of Henry, though that monarch had persecuted Tyndale sone years before. Matthew's B. soon superseded Coverdale's. In April 1539, appeared the Great B., usually called Cranmer's, because he wrote a preface to it. It was a large volume for use in churches. The text was Tyndale's revised. In the same year, Richard Taverner, a learned but eccentric

Matthew's Bible. In 1557 appeared the famous Geneva B., so called because the translation was executed there by several English divines, who had fled from the persecutions of the bloody Mary. Among these may be mentioned Gilby and Whittingham. This edition-the first printed in Roman letter and divided into verses-was accompanied by notes, which showed a strong leaning to the views of Calvin and Beza. It was, in consequence, long the favourite version of the English Puritans and the Scotch Presbyterians. It is, however, best known as the Breeches B., on account of the rendering of Genesis iii. 7: Then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig-tree leaves together, and made themselves breeches.' In 1568, the Bishop's B. was published at London. The text of this was compared with the original by eight bishops, and several other scholars of reputation, who appended their initials to their respective tasks; the whole being under the superintendence of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1582 appeared at Rheims, in France, an English version of the New Testament, prepared by several Roman Catholic exiles; and in 1609-1610, a similar version of the Old Testament at Douay. Both were taken from the Vulgate, and form the standard English Scriptures of the Roman Catholics, being generally known as the Douay Bible.

We now come to the version which has been in common use for nearly 250 years, generally called King James's Bible. At the Hampton Court Conference in January 1604, Dr. Rainolds, an eminent Puritan, suggested a new translation as a great national want; and this, though opposed by the Bishop of London, was sanctioned by the king. Arrangements were at once made for carrying out the project. In July, the king wrote a letter, intimating the appointment of 54 scholars for the preparation of the version, and instructing the bishops that whenever a living of twenty pounds' became vacant, they should inform his majesty of the circumstance, in order that he might recommend one of the translators to the patron. This was all that James did on behalf of the translation which bears his name. The expenses seem to have been borne by Barker, the printer and patentee, who paid the sum of £3500. Of the 54 scholars who had been nominated to the work, only 47 undertook it. These were divided into six companies, two of which were to meet at Westminster, two at Cambridge, and two at Oxford. The first company at Westminster translated the Pentateuch and the historical books to the end of 2d Kings; the first at Cambridge, from the beginning of Chronicles to the end of Canticles; and the first at Oxford undertook the remaining books of the Old Testament canon. The second company at Westminster translated the apostolic epistles; the second at Cambridge, the Apocrypha; and the second at Oxford, the gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Apocalypse. According to Selden, they then met together, and one read the translation, the rest holding in their hands some B., either of the learned tongues, or French, Spanish, Italian, &c. If they found any fault, they spoke; if not, he read on.' When a portion was finished by one of the company, it was sent to all the others in succession for their deliberative examination; and whenever a difference of opinion was elicited, reference was made to a committee. The final revision of the whole was conducted in London by two delegates from each of the six companies. These twelve scholars, in the discharge of their critical functions, met daily

BIBLE BIBLE SOCIETY.

The exclusive right to print the present authorised version has been claimed by the Crown, ever since the date of its first publication, and under this royal prerogative, the B. is printed in different forms, and sold wholesale by certain patentees and licensees in England, Scotland, and Ireland. This claim, which does not practically affect Bibles with notes, has lately been much remonstrated against as a monopoly injurious to the free circulation of the Scriptures at a moderate price, and a modification is now looked for (See BOOK TRADE).

in the old hall of the Stationers' Company for nine | B.-reading by the laity. On the contrary, as the months. The work of translation and revision foundation on which the Church was built, and the occupied from 1607 to 1610. The superiority of the sole source of religious knowledge, the reading of authorised version soon proved itself; for though the B. formed an essential part of the instruction there were several rivals in the field, and no steps communicated by pastors to their congregations; were taken to secure for it a preference, it quickly and the greatest orators of the Church-especially gained the foremost place, and in the course of forty Chrysostom and Augustine-continually reminded years from its publication, all others had quietly their hearers that private reading and study of succumbed to it; it became, and has ever since re- the Scriptures should follow attendance on public mained the English Bible. Its ascendency, and its services. This great fact is by no means contraexclusive use among all classes in Great Britain, dicted by the warnings found, here and there, in and in her vast colonies, can only be traced to its the Fathers against abuse or mistake of the meanintrinsic excellence. Of late, however, there has ing of Scripture; these warnings rather imply that been an agitation for the preparation of a new Eng- Scripture-reading was common among the laity. lish version. The gradual widening of the distinction, or rather the separation, between the clergy and the laity, was the work of the middle ages; and, among other means of preserving traditions inviolate and maintaining the exclusive character and sacred authority of the hierarchy, the B. was held in the background, even while there was no direct prohibition of its common use. In 1080, Gregory VII. ordained that Latin should be the universal language of Catholic worship, and consequently excluded all vernacular readings of Scripture in public assemblies. Again, with regard to the Waldenses, Innocent III., in 1199, prohibited the private possession and reading of Scripture (excepting the portions contained in the Breviary and the Psalter) without Similar propriestly permission and supervision. hibitions were repeated at Toulouse (1229), at Béziers (1233), and with regard to Wickliffe, at the synod of Oxford (1383). Ultimately, the recognised Latin version, or Vulgate, was more and more decidedly made the sole authorised Church version. Indeed, as early as 1234, the synod of Tarragona denounced as a heretic any one who, having a translation of the B., refused to surrender it to be burned within the space of eight days. As, however, it soon appeared plain that little could be effected by such prohibitions, milder measures were employed. The Tridentine Council, being required to pro

The more liberal Catholics-especially the Jansenists De Sacy, Arnauld, and Nicole; the enlightened Richard Simon and Quesnel-also shared in the common zeal for diffusing a knowledge of the Scriptures; but though many versions have been prepared by Catholics, the Romish Church has consistently maintained an opposition to the general circulation of Holy Scripture without ecclesiastical

comments.

The numerous recent translations of the Scriptures into languages beyond the pale of Christendom, have been executed chiefly under the auspices of Missionary and Bible Societies (q. v.).

This

employed a word of ambiguous meaning in styling
the Vulgate simply authentic;' but nothing was
determined on B.-reading among the laity.
was first done in the publication of the first Index
Librorum Prohibitorum soon after the Tridentine
Council. Afterwards, the rules of the Church,
placing the use of the Scriptures under the super-
vision of the bishops, were more and more strictly
defined. The publication of the New Testament
with practical annotations by Paschasius Quesnel
(1687), gave occasion to the Roman Catholic Church
to speak more definitely on the reading of the
B. by the laity in the bull Unigenitus Dei Filius,
1713. New ordinances were issued by Pope Pius
VII. in his Brief to the Archbishop of Gnesen and
Mohilew (1816) against translations formerly author-
ised; again, by Leo XII., in his condemnation of B.
societies (1824), and by Pius VIII.
ordinances of the Roman Catholic Church imply
that it is dangerous to give the B. freely to the
laity, and that, therefore, no vernacular versions
ought to be used without interpretations taken from
the Fathers, and an especial papal sanction.

As to the contents of the B., its one grand object, under whatever form it may appear in the various books, is to give an account of this world, both in its origin and government, as the work of announce on the question of B. translations, purposely Almighty Creator, always and everywhere present; and especially to exhibit the relation of inan to this Creator, and, in consequence of that relation, in what manner, and with what hopes he ought to live and die-subjects undeniably the most momentous that can occupy human thought. The sacred books of other religions have all an analogous aim; to account, namely, for the origin of all things, and to explain the nature and human relations of that something divine, which it is an instinct of the human mind to conceive as actuating and controlling all that moves. But so different-so immeasurably superior to all other sacred books is the B. in the conception it unfolds of the Divine nature as one personal God, exercising towards men the love and care of a parent to his offspring, and in the system of human duties springing therefrom, that on this consideration alone many rest its claim to being received as a direct revelation from heaven. The questions regarding the B., considered in this point of view, fall to be treated under the heads of Inspiration and Revelation. To attempt to analyse or give any detailed account of the contents of the Scriptures is beyond the scope of this article. The leading features of the doctrines and precepts, as a system, will be briefly sketched under the head of Christianity; while the chief individual doctrines receive notice under their respective names, and in the accounts of the controversies to which they have given rise.

·

BIBLE, PROHIBITION OF. This is one of the main points of opposition between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Church. In the earliest times, we find no evidence of any prohibition of

All these

BIBLE SOCIETY, an association having exclusively for its object the diffusion of the sacred Scriptures. Such associations must be regarded as a natural form or expression of Christian benevolence, acting according to the principles of Protestantism, and seeking to take advantage of the facilities afforded by the art of printing: but a long period elapsed after the Reformation before a B. S. was formed; during which, however, an extensive diffusion of the Scriptures took place, and partly by the

BIBLE SOCIETY.

agency of associations which included it among average of £70,000, and in 1859 amounted to £78,047, other means for the advancement of Christianity. derived from donations, legacies, collections, &c., and It necessarily became, along with the translation applicable to the general purposes of the Society, of the Scriptures, one of the objects to which mis- besides £5156 for special objects (a 'Chinese New sionary societies directed their energy. But perhaps Testament Fund,' and an 'India Fund'), and £75,918 the first association ever formed for the sole and derived from sales of Bibles and New Testaments. specific purpose of providing copies of the Scriptures Auxiliary and branch societies and dependent asfor those who were destitute of them, was that sociations rapidly sprang up in all parts of Britain, founded by Baron Hildebrand von Canstein, an and in the colonies, the number of which at present intimate friend of Spener, in conjunction with amounts to more than 8000. Much more than oneFrancke at Halle, and which, down to 1834, when half of the expenditure of the British and Foreign other Bible Societies had begun to be established B. S. has been devoted to the diffusion of the authorin Germany, had distributed 2,754,350 copies of ised English version of the Bible, the only English the Bible, and about 2,000,000 copies of the New version with which its fundamental rules permit it Testament. The impulse, however, to the formation to have anything to do; it has also spent large sums of the Bible Societies now existing in all parts of in printing and circulating the Scriptures in the Protestant Christendom proceeded from England, different Celtic languages spoken in Great Britain where, in 1780, an association was formed for the and Ireland, and a very inportant branch of its distribution of Bibles among soldiers and sailors. operations has been the printing of translations of It was at first simply called The B. S.; it exists the Bible prepared by missionaries. The number to the present day, is now known as the Naval of translations of the Scripture-in many cases and Military B. S., and confining itself to its complete, in others extending only to the New original specific object, has accomplished much Testament, in some only to particular booksgood. It is not an uninteresting circumstance, that which have been printed at the expense of the the first ship in which Bibles were distributed by Society, amounts to not less than 157, the greater this Society was the ill-fated Royal George.-In part being translations never before printed, and the beginning of 1792, a similar association was many in languages possessing no previous literature. formed in London, under the name of the French-The British and Foreign B. S. now issues annually B. S., with a similar limited and specific object more than a million and a half of copies of the Bible, of distributing Bibles in the French tongue. It the New Testament, or such portions of sacred was probably the attitude assumed by infidelity Scripture as have been printed in languages not in France which gave occasion to the formation of possessing complete translations. The whole numthis Society, but the greater part of its funds having ber issued, from the formation of the Society to 31st been remitted to Paris for the printing of the Bible March 1859, was 35,609,931. This Society has also there, were lost, and everything belonging to the employed, besides the officials necessary for the Society destroyed in the tumult of the Revolution. management of its funds and its extensive business, -It was not till 1802 that the first steps were agents of high education and Christian character, taken towards the formation of the BRITISH who have visited different countries for the promoAND FOREIGN B. S., the parent of a multitude tion of its great object. The names of Dr. Henderson of similar institutions, and the establishment of and Dr. Pinkerton must be familiar to many readers, which must be regarded as the great epoch in the and perhaps no instance could be mentioned more history of this branch of Christian beneficence; nor happily illustrative of the character of this branch was the Society fully organised and established till of the Society's operations than the visit of Dr. March 7, 1804. Its formation took place in conse- Henderson to Iceland, an account of which is given. quence of the deep impression made upon the mind in his well-known and very interesting volume of of the Rev. Thomas Charles of Bala, in Wales, by travels in that country.-A controversy concerning the destitution of the sacred Scriptures which he the circulation of the books of the Apocrypha along found to exist in the sphere of his labours, and with the canonical Scriptures by the British and particularly by a circumstance strikingly illus- Foreign B. S. (see APOCRYPHA), led. to a resolution trative of that destitution. Meeting a little girl in 1826-not, however, till after the withdrawal of in one of the streets of the town, he inquired if she some of its most zealous supporters-that its funds could repeat the text from which he had preached should be devoted, according to its original design, on the preceding Sunday. Instead of giving a to the diffusion of the canonical books alone.-The prompt reply, as she had been accustomed to do, EDINBURGH B. S. has from that time to the present she remained silent, and then weeping told him subsisted as an entirely separate Society. that the weather had been so bad she could not The AMERICAN B. S. is in the magnitude and imget to read the Bible. She had been accustomed portance of its operations, next to the British and to travel every week seven miles over the hills to Foreign Bible Society. It was founded at New York a place where she could obtain access to a Welsh in 1817, and still has its head-quarters in that city, Bible. Mr. Charles, on his next visit to London, in the Bible House,' a very large and magnificent brought the subject of the want of Bibles in Wales building, erected by special subscription. It reckons under the notice of the committee of the Religious fully 1200 auxiliary societies, in all parts of the Tract Society (q. v.), when it was suggested by Mr. United States. Its income now amounts to about Hughes, a member of the committee, that a Society 400,000 dollars (£82,000) a year, rather more than might be formed for the purpose of supplying Bibles one-half being derived from sales of Bibles and not only in Wales, but wherever destitution existed Testaments, and the rest from donations, collections, throughout the world. The Society was constituted &c. The American B. S. has for some time issued on the widest possible basis, churchmen and dis- annually more than 250,000 Bibles, and nearly twice senters being alike included in it; and soon attained that number of New Testaments and other portions a greatness corresponding with that of the other two of Scripture. The funds of the Society have been religious societies, the London Missionary Society chiefly expended in supplying the wants of the (see MISSIONARY SOCIETY), and the Religious Tract inhabitants of the United States, amongst whom the Society (q. v.), which had been formed on similar Indian tribes have not been neglected. The Bible principles, a few years before. It was indeed able to Association of Friends in America,' founded at Philexpend only about £619 in the first year of its exist-adelphia in 1829, has distributed the Bible extensively ence; but its annual income gradually increased to an lamong the members of that society and others.

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BIBLIA PAUPERUM-BIBLIOGRAPHY.

BIBLICAL ANTIQUITIES, or BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY, is a study which has for its objects the social and political constitution, the manners, customs, geography, &c., of the Jews and other peoples mentioned in the Scriptures. A knowledge of these is essential to a right understanding of many passages of Scripture. The antiquities of the ancient Jews themselves undoubtedly form the most important part of such a study; but an examination of the laws, customs, &c., of the neighbouring Semitic nations is likewise indispensable. The principal sources of such knowledge are the Old and the New Testament; the books of Josephus on Jewish Antiquities and the Wars of the Jews; the writings of Philo, the Talmud and Rabbinical writers, with medals, monuments, and other worlds of art, the accounts of travellers, &c. The first work on Hebrew archæology was Thomas Goodwin's Moses et Aaron, seu Civiles et Ecclesiastici Ritus Antiquorum Hebr. (Oxford, 1616). Among later treatises we may especially notice-Jahn's Biblical Archæology (5 vols. Vienna, 1796-1805); Bauer's Manual of Hebrew Antiquities (Leip. 1797); De Wette's Manual of Hebrew-Jewish Archæology (Leip. 1814); Rosenmüller's Manual of Biblical Antiquities (Leip. 1823); and Winer's Biblical Dictionary (3d ed. Leip. 1847). A convenient work of reference on this subject is Dr. Kitto's Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature, which numbers among its contributors many of the ablest British and continental scholars; or The Pictorial Bible, edited by the same writer, and containing original notes explanatory of passages connected with the History, Geography, Natural History, Literature, and Antiquities of the Sacred Scriptures (newest edition published by W. and R. Chambers, 1856.)

Of the numerous Bible Societies of Germany, the most important and extensively ramified is the Prussian Central B. S. (Hauptbibelgesellschaft) in Berlin. It was founded in 1814, and has branches in all parts of the Prussian dominions. More Bibles, however, are annually supplied to the people of Germany by the agents of the British and Foreign B. S. than by all the German Bible societies together, and there still exists a great and acknowledged destitution.Bible societies were prohibited by the Austrian government in 1817, and some which had already been established in Hungary were dissolved.-The RUSSIAN B. S. founded at St. Petersburg in 1813, through the exertions of Dr. Paterson, and under the patronage of the Emperor Alexander I., entered upon a career of great activity and usefulness, co-works; and lastly, Greek, Roman, and Arabian operating with the British and Foreign B. S. for the printing of the Scriptures in the numerous languages spoken within the Russian dominions; but its operations were suspended in 1826 on the accession of the Emperor Nicholas, its stock of Bibles, and the whole concern, being transferred to the Holy Synod, under the pretence that the sacred work of supplying the people with the Holy Scriptures belonged to the Church, and not to a secular society. The Bibles and Testaments in stock were indeed sold, and very large editions were thus disposed of, but the activity of a society which had no | equal in continental Europe was at an end. A Protestant B. S. was then, however, formed, for the purpose of providing editions of the Scriptures and circulating them among the Protestants of all parts of the empire, which now reckons 277 auxiliary societies. But the action of this Society 'does not touch the members of the Greek Church, or, if at all, only slightly and incidentally, and it makes no provision of the Scriptures in the language spoken by the great mass of the people. It is merely designed to meet the wants of colonists and others, who do not use the Russian language.' Of the translations of the Scriptures published by the original Russian B. S., the greater number have never been reprinted since its suppression.

There can be no doubt that Bible societies have contributed very much to the progress of Christianity and civilisation since the beginning of the 19th c., and their influence is continually increasing and extending.

BIBLIA PAU'PERUM, or Bible of the Poor, was a sort of picture-book of the middle ages, giving, on from forty to fifty leaves, the leading events of human salvation through Christ, each picture being accompanied by an illustrative text or sentence in Latin. A similar and contemporaneous work on a more extended scale, and with the legend or text in rhyme, was called Speculum Humane Salvationis, i. e., the 'Mirror of Human Salvation.' Before the Reformation, these two books were the chief textbooks used, especially by monks, in preaching, and took the place of the Bible with the laity, and even clergy; and as the lower orders of the regular clergy, such as the Franciscans, Carthusians, &c., took the title of 'Paupers Christi,' Christ's Poor, hence the name. Many manuscripts of the B. P., and of the Mirror of Salvation, several as old as the 13th c., are preserved in different languages. The pictures of this series were copied in sculptures, in wall and glass painting, altar-pieces, &c., and thus become of importance in the art of the middle ages. In the 15th c., the B. P. was perhaps the first book that was printed in the Netherlands and Germany, first with blocks, and then with types. The chief proof for the discovery of printing in Haarlem rests on the first impressions of the Speculum Humanæ Salvationis. COSTER.

BIBLIO'GRAPHY, a term applied to the description and proper cataloguing of books. It is derived from bibliographia, which was employed by the Greeks to signify the transcription of books, while bibliographos was merely a copyist. The introduction of the term in the meaning which we now attach to it may be dated from the appearance of the first volume of De Bure's Bibliographie Instructive in 1763.

The bare enumeration of the works that have been written on this branch of literature would more than fill an ordinary volume; we shall here confine ourselves to the more important of them.

A favourite dream of bibliographers has been the production of a general catalogue, embracing the whole range of printed literature; and one attempt at least has been made to realise it. In the year 1545, Conrad Gesner published at Zurich, in one folio volume, his Bibliotheca Universalis, in which are described, under the names of the authors, arranged alphabetically, all the books in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages about which the compiler could obtain information. This restriction as to language, of course, does away to some extent with the idea of universality indicated by the titlepage; still, as the three which are included were in Gesner's time almost the only ones employed by men of learning, his work may be regarded as a nearly complete account of the state of printed literature as it then existed. The only other effort in this direction which we have to record is the Bibliotheca Britannica of Dr. Robert Watt, 4 vols. 4to (Edinburgh, 1824). Its object will be best described by the following extract from the preface to it: 'The account given of British writers and their works is universal, embracing every description of authors, and every branch of knowledge and literaSee ture. What has been admitted of foreign publicatious, though selective, forms a. very considerable

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