FAROESE.

SPECIMEN, FROM ST. MATTHEW, CHAP. V. v. 1 to 13.

Wen taa-ui han saae Folkje, gjaek han up aa ait Bjørg; o taa-ui han var sedstur, gingu Disciplar hansara til hans. 2 O ban leâd up Munn suin, lardi tair, o seje: 3 Saali eru tei faataku ui Aandini, thui Himmerigjis Ruigje ér taira. 4 Saali eru tei, sum sirgja, thui tei skullu hugsveâlast. 5 Saali eru tei Sagtmoniu, thui tei skullu arva Jørina. 6 Saali eru tei, ui hungra o tista ettur Rattelihaid, thui tei skullu maettast. 7 Saali eru tei Varmbjartiu, thui tei skullu njouda Barmhjartihaid. 8 Saali eru tei reinu eâv Hjartanun, thui tei skullu sudja Gud. 9 Saali eru tei Frialiu, thui tei skullu kadlast Guds Bødn. 10 Saali eru tei, sum luja Forfilgiilse firi Nattelihaids Skjild, thui taira ér Himmerigiis Ruigje. 11 Saalijir eru Tid, um tei spotta o forfilgja Tikun, o teâla ui ødlun Lûdun idla um Tikun firi muina Skjild, o ligva teå. 12 Glaeji o friji Tikun, thui Løøn Tikara skeâl vaera migjil ui Himlunun; thui só heâva tei forfilgt Prophetarnar, sum youru firi Tikun. 13 Tid eru Jørina Salt; men qvisui Salti missur Dijina, vi quørjun skeâl teâ saltast? Teâ diur til onkje Anna, enn á bleâgast ûd, o trakkast undur Folka Foudun.

I. GEOGRAPHICAL EXTENT AND STATISTICS.

THE Faröe or Feröe Islands belong to Denmark, and lie in the Northern Ocean, between the Shetland Isles and Iceland. They are twenty-two in number, but only seventeen are inhabited. Their total area amounts to 495 square miles, and the population is about 7000.

The islanders are of Scandinavian origin, and speak a dialect of the Old Norse, or Icelandic language. All mercantile, judicial, and ecclesiastical affairs are carried on in Danish, but the natives employ their own dialect as the common medium of colloquial intercourse.

II. VERSION OF THE GOSPEL OF ST. MATTHEW IN THIS DIALECT.

About the year 1817, the Rev. Mr. Schroeter, rector of one of the churches in the Faröe Isles, offered to produce a translation of the New Testament into the Faröese dialect, provided that the directors of the Danish Bible Society would undertake to print an edition. He urged, among other reasons for engaging in this work, that the islanders are so situated that they cannot attend their churches more than from four to six times a year; and that most of them, especially the younger part of the community, are so little acquainted with Danish, that they are unable to read the Danish Bible. The Gospel of St. Matthew was accordingly prepared by Mr. Schroeter, but as there was some difficulty in writing in a dialect in which neither grammars nor even printed books existed, the publication was delayed, in order that greater accuracy might be ensured. The Danish Committee at length found a learned pastor in Jutland, the Rev. Mr. Lyngbye, who during his botanical rambles in the Faroe Isles had acquired a familiar acquaintance with the dialect. He was employed to correct the press, and under his superintendence 1500 copies of St. Matthew's Gospel were printed in Faröese, at Randers in Jutland, without any assistance from the British and Foreign Bible Society apart from the grants made for the general purposes of the Danish Society. It does not appear that any other books of the New Testament have been printed, or even translated into Faröese.

CLASS III.-INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES.

E. GRÆC O-LATIN FAMILY.

ANCIENT GREEK.

SPECIMEN, FROM ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL, CHAP. I. v. 1 to 14.

ἘΝ ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. 2 Οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν Θεόν. 3 Πάντα δι' αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο· καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἓν ὃ γέγονεν. 4 Ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων. 5 Καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν. 6 Εγένετο ἄνθρωπος ἀπεσταλμένος παρὰ Θεοῦ· ὄνομα αὐτῷ Ἰωάννης. 7 Οὗτος ἦλθεν εἰς μαρτυρίαν, ἵνα μαρτυρήσῃ περὶ τοῦ φωτὸς, ἵνα πάντες πιστεύσωσι δι' αὐτοῦ. 8 Οὐκ ἦν ἐκεῖνος τὸ φῶς, ἀλλ ̓ ἵνα μαρτυρήσῃ περὶ τοῦ φωτός. 9 *Ην τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινὸν, ὃ φωτίζει πάντα ἄνθρωπον ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον. 10 Ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἦν, καὶ ὁ κόσμος δι' αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο· καὶ ὁ κόσμος αὐτὸν οὐκ ἔγνω. 11 Εἰς τὰ ἴδια ἦλθε, καὶ οἱ ἴδιοι αὐτὸν οὐ παρέλαβον. 12 Ὅσοι δὲ ἔλαβον αὐτὸν, ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ἐξουσίαν τέκνα Θεοῦ γενέσθαι, τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ· 13 Οἳ οὐκ ἐξ αἱμάτων, οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος σαρκός, οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος ἀνδρὸς, ἀλλ ̓ ἐκ Θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν. 14 Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο· καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, (καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ πατρὸς,) πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας.

I. GEOGRAPHICAL EXTENT.

At the time of the first preaching of Christianity, the more.civilised nations of the Roman empire (however dissimilar their respective vernacular tongues) were united by the bond of a common language, which to them was almost the only known medium of poetry, learning, and philosophy. That language was the Greek. In certain countries, as in Greece itself, in Egypt, and, as some say, in Syria, it was used in the common affairs of life; but everywhere it was the language of literature, and as such held the same position that was occupied by Latin during the middle ages. The conquests of Alexander the Great had been the primary cause, under Providence, of the wide diffusion of this language; and although the Grecian empire was afterwards supplanted by the Roman, yet the civilisation, the arts, and the language of Greece long remained predominant.

II.-CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LANGUAGE.

The ancient Greek language was divided into four principal dialects—the Attic, which was the purest, the Ionic, the Doric, and the Æolic, spoken originally in those colonies on the coast of Asia Minor distinguished from each other by varieties of orthography and pronunciation. When, under Philip of Macedon, the Grecian republics lost their freedom, and became more or less united under one government, the various dialects were gradually amalgamated into one. The language which thus sprang from this intermixture of dialects differed materially from that of books, as preserved in the

writings of the early poets and philosophers. It became current however wherever the Greek language was spoken; it was even used by the later writers; and, on account of its wide diffusion, received the name of κown diáλEKTOS, the common dialect. The Septuagint version was written in this dialect, and κοινὴ διάλεκτος, it was also selected by Divine Providence as the appropriate medium of communicating to man the new covenant in Christ Jesus. It is characterised by the promiscuous employment of forms originally peculiar to one dialect; Attic, Ionic, and Doric words are indiscriminately used, and often placed in juxtaposition with words of foreign origin. Planck has observed, that in the New Testament there are, in the flexion of nouns, no traces of any of the ancient dialects except the Attic, but that in the flexion of verbs there is more variety, the Attic furnishing most examples, and the Doric affording others, while many of the forms are exclusively to be met with in the latter idiom. The influence of Hebrew characteristics is likewise to be traced in the New Testament, in several passages the phraseology being Hebrew, while the words are Greek. This is more especially observable in the frequent use of a double substantive (arising from the paucity of adjectives in Hebrew), and in the use of the words of God as indicative of the superlative degree. The Greek alphabet is a modification of the Phoenician, and it is to the adoption of this alphabet, which is but ill-adapted to express any sounds. except those of Shemitic origin, that many of the anomalies of the Greek language are to be attributed.

III. CODICES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

There seems every reason to believe that the whole of the New Testament was originally communicated by the Holy Spirit to the inspired penmen in the Greek language. Some indeed have asserted, that the Gospel according to St. Matthew and the Epistle to the Hebrews were originally written in Hebrew, and at a subsequent period transferred into Greek; but the data on which this opinion is founded are by no means conclusive.' It is generally thought that the autographs of the evangelists and apostles were not preserved beyond the commencement of the third century, even if they remained in existence so long; but, prior to that period, many copies of the sacred writings had been made and dispersed among the infant churches. The most ancient copies appear generally to have been made on Egyptian papyrus, a very perishable material, so that none of these have been transmitted to us. As early as the fourth century we find vellum in common use for writing; and, in the eleventh century, paper made of cotton, wool, or linen, was adopted. The oldest MSS. have no divisions of words, and no accents, and are all written in capital, or, as they were formerly called, uncial letters. The earliest MS. written in letters of the present cursive form bears the date 890, but even after this period the old uncial characters were sometimes used on account of their beautiful regularity.

Although the Scriptures were given in the first instance by the immediate inspiration of God, yet no supernatural power was communicated to those who transcribed them. The multiplication of copies was conducted on the same principle as that of other books which have been transmitted from ancient times. The MSS. of the New Testament are not, therefore, free from the errors of copyists; but as it is not likely, or even possible, that copies executed by different persons, and from different exemplars, should all contain precisely the same errors, it seems reasonable to believe that, by the careful comparison of copies, one copy can be used to correct another, and the purity of the original text be thus in a great measure restored. An error in an ancient exemplar would be perpetuated in all copies and versions made from it; and it is probably owing to this cause that a sort of family resemblance is to be traced in copies, certain MSS. indicating, by peculiar or faulty readings, the age and country of the exemplar to which they owe their origin. This circumstance has led to the classification of MSS.

1 Upon this point, however, the student may be usefully referred to a paper "On the Original Language of St. Matthew's Gospel," by Dr. S. P. Tregelles (London, Bagster and Sons, 1850), reprinted from the Journal of Sacred Literature, No. 9, and in which the subject is discussed with much learning and ability. The opinion of the Hebrew original of St. Matthew's Gospel was, as the author shows, universally entertained by the Christian Church for the long term of fourteen hundred years subsequent to the close of the first century.

Griesbach has divided all MSS. of the New Testament into the following classes, generally termed families, editions, or recensions:

I. The Alexandrian recension, so called because it emanated from Alexandria: it is quoted by Clement of Alexandria, by Origen, Eusebius, and other Greek fathers. The Coptic version agrees wholly with it, and the Ethiopic and Armenian versions coincide with it in part.

II. The Western recension, used in countries where the Latin language was spoken, and with which the Latin versions coincide. The Sahidic and Jerusalem Syriac versions also agree with it: Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine, and other Latin fathers, quote it. III. The Constantinopolitan recension, to which the mass of modern MSS. and the Moscow codices of St. Paul's epistles are referable. Quotations from this recension appear in the works of the fathers who lived from the end of the fourth till the sixth century, in Greece, Asia Minor, and the neighbouring provinces. The Gothic and Sclavonic versions coincide with it.

The classification of MSS. is, however, a very intricate subject, the classes being so blended that it is difficult to separate them; and, besides, the discrepancies are so trifling, being chiefly of an orthographical nature, that in many cases it is not easy to determine to which class a given MS. may belong. Hence various systems of classification have been proposed by different writers: some affirm that there are four distinct classes, and others that there are only two. According to the system of Scholz, MSS. are divisible into the Alexandrian or African (including the first two classes of Griesbach), and the Constantinopolitan or Asiatic.

Individual MSS. are conventionally distinguished from each other by one of the letters of the alphabet being affixed to each. These marks do not point out the relative antiquity or value of the MSS., but seem to have been applied in the first instance in a very arbitrary manner, and to have been afterwards retained for the sake of convenience. The most ancient and valuable MSS. which have been handed down to us are the following:

CODEX A, sometimes called the Alexandrine MS., having in all probability been written at Alexandria, whence it was certainly brought. It is commonly referred to the fifth century. It contains the Old Testament in three volumes, and the New Testament in one volume: appended to the latter is the First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, and a fragment of the Second. This MS. was presented by Cyrillus Lucaris, patriarch of Alexandria and afterwards of Constantinople, to Charles I. of England, in 1628, and it is now in the British Museum. A facsimile edition of the New Testament was published at the expense of the University of Oxford in 1726, under the editorship of Dr. Woide: the Old Testament was afterwards edited by the Rev. H. H. Baber. CODEX B, generally termed the Vatican MS., because it belongs to that library, marked 1209. It is one of the most ancient MSS. extant, being ascribed to the middle of the fourth century. It contains both the Old and New Testaments, but the book of Revelation has been added to it by a modern hand. It wants the end of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and those to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. The Old Testament was printed from this MS. in 1587 by order of Sixtus V., and a translation of the New Testament has been given by Granville Penn.

Another MS., also marked B, and therefore sometimes confounded with the preceding, is in the Vatican Library. It is supposed to belong to the seventh century, and contains the Apocalypse, with the Homilies of Basil and Gregory of Nyssa: a facsimile of it is. given in Bianchini's Evangeliarium Quadruplex. The text has been published by Tischendorf.

CODEX C, also called Codex Ephraemi, and sometimes Codex Regius, because preserved in the

Royal Library of Paris. This valuable MS., which originally contained the whole of the New Testament, and the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, was written in Egypt, about the sixth century, but was erased in the thirteenth century to make room for the works of Ephraem the Syrian, which were written over it. By means of chemical applications, however, the original text has been in a great measure restored. Wetstein succeeded in deciphering and collating it; and, in 1843, a splendid facsimile edition, with prolegomena, was published by Tischendorf.

CODEX D, also known as Codex Cantabrigiensis or Beza, because presented in 1581 to the University of Cambridge by Beza. It had for years previously lain neglected in the monastery of St. Irenæus at Lyons, whence Beza had procured it. It contains the Gospels and Acts with a Latin version. It belongs probably to the seventh century, but to what country is uncertain. A beautiful facsimile edition was published by Dr. Kipling at Cambridge, in 1793. CODEX D, or Codex Claromontanus, probably marked D, because erroneously believed by Dr. Mill and other critics to form the second part of the preceding. It is a Greek and Latin copy of St. Paul's Epistles, and is called Codex Claromontanus because procured from Clermont in France by Beza. It belongs either to the seventh or eighth century. It is preserved in the Royal Library at Paris. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, certain sheets were cut out of it by a thief, and sold in England, but they were restored to the library by Lord Oxford in 1729.

CODEX ZACYNTHIUS (E), a palimpsest MS. discovered in Zante in 1820 by the late General Macaulay, contains a considerable portion of the Gospel by St. Luke. It is in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society. The Committee granted the use of it for collation and transcription to Dr. Tregelles, who says, "I do not know of any MS. of equal antiquity accompanied by a Catena; in many respects this most valuable palimpsest is worthy of special attention: it is remarkable that it had remained in this country for nearly forty years unread and unused." It is printed with the Alexandrian types lent by the Trustees of the British Museum, and published by Messrs. Bagster. Facsimiles of several other MSS. have been published, but the bare enumeration of all the MSS. of the New Testament would be impossible within our limits. The number of MSS. known to have been collated in whole or in part amounts, according to Scholz, to 674. By far the greater number of these MSS. contain only the four Gospels, this portion of Scripture having been most constantly in demand, because most frequently used in the public service of the church. Ancient copies of the entire New Testament are extremely rare. MSS. Lectionaria, which contain the detached portions of the Testament appointed to be read in churches, are by no means uncommon. Copies of the book of Revelation are remarkably scarce: there are in fact but three ancient MSS. in which this book is to be found, namely Codex A, one of the Codices marked B, and Codex C. Of these, Codex C is the most valuable, but it is unfortunately very defective, about nine chapters being missing; so that Codex B, the text of which has been lately published by Tischendorf, and Codex A (the Alexandrine MS.) are the only ancient exemplars to which we are indebted for our acquaintance with the whole of the New Testament in the original.

IV. PRINTED EDITIONS OF THE GREEK TESTAMENT.

Six chapters of the Gospel of St. John were printed at Venice as early as 1504, by Aldus Manutius, and the whole of that Gospel was printed at Tübingen in Suabia, the modern kingdom of Wurtemberg, in 1512. But these editions are interesting only as literary curiosities, for though they constituted the first portion of the Greek Testament ever committed to the press, yet they exercised no influence whatever on succeeding editions.

The earliest printed edition of the entire New Testament is contained in the Complutensian