Commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew

Front matter

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Foreword

This interpretation of "The Gospel according to Matthew" was first issued early in the new era of scientific Bible study, awakened by systematic explorations in Bible lands, by Bible revision, and by the uniform Bible lessons which concentrated upon the Christian Scriptures the learning and best scholarship of the world.

My purpose was then, and is now, to insist upon the recognition of the Oriental character of the Gospels as the guiding principle of interpretation. What was then rarely deemed of any value even as a side light, was made in this work the foremost and main guide to avoid misinterpretation. The Bible is an Oriental book, the Gospels are Oriental narratives, not only written by Orientals in Oriental lands, but rich with Oriental imagery, glowing with Oriental color, thought, and expression. Even the great central character, Jesus Christ, was himself a man among Orientals.

Now our English Versions conceal these peculiar Oriental features under necessary Occidental idioms, modes of thought, and of expression. This not merely mars the beauty of the Gospel, it often causes us to misinterpret the message. Thus, my chief aim is to enable the student to read the Gospels as if he were by the sea of Galilee, in Jerusalem, or on the slopes of Olivet, with the Lord surrounded by disciples, thronged with Oriental multitudes seeking to hear and to be healed, all of them conspicuous by their Oriental dress, manners, customs, and forms of speech.

The wealth of information accumulated in recent years by critical investigation of foremost scholars of all schools, radical, textual, and conservative, in Higher Criticism, Lower Criticism, and Biblical Theology, should be carefully sifted and made accessible for the general reader. Therefore, a second special feature of this work is to apply the accepted results of critical learning, free from technical terms and confusing processes of speculation, to the interpretation of difficult

FOREWORD.

passages, and so to present them that the reader can form a judgment for himself without depending upon the opinion of the author.

A third special feature of this work is to aid the reader in grasping the shades of meaning in the original text, the textus receptus not only, but also the Anglo-American Revisers' Greek Text. This is attained through a comparison of the Authorized Version with the Revised Version, and often through a more literal translation. To further this end, the texts of the "Authorized" and of the " Revised Versions " are printed in small type, in parallel columns, at the foot of the page, for ready reference of the reader.

So far as known to the author this Commentary was among the foremost to combine these three special features, and to recognize the thoroughly Oriental character of the Gospels as necessarily a guiding principle to their right interpretation.

In every part of this work the author is largely indebted to Syrian and other explorers and scholars for special investigations in Oriental lands and life in the East, and to critical scholars and friends in America and Europe for much of the new light that has from time to time helped to enrich the successive editions.

This re-revised edition has about thirty pages of new material, the Introduction having been entirely rewritten, and changes and recensions have been carefully made in every part of the book. In this newly revised form, the volume is sent forth in the hope that it may have the same generous reception that has been accorded to its predecessors.

EDWIN W. RICE.

Philadelphia, November, 1909.

Introduction

I. THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES.

The Christian Scriptures, named "The New Testament," comprises twenty-seven treatises or books. Joined to the Jewish Scriptures, named " The Old Testament," of thirty-nine books, the two divisions make the one volume called "The Bible."

Title. — " The New Testament " is a comparatively modern and inaccurate title of the Christian Scriptures. The Jewish Scriptures were early named not the "Old Testament," but "The Covenant," or "Book of the Covenant." 1 The Gospels and apostolic writings were at the first alluded to and conceived and spoken of as a " New Covenant." 2 The same Greek term for " covenant," 5ta6i]K7], sometimes signified also " testament," but far more commonly in Scriptures it means " covenant." The Latin term " testamentum " was sometimes applied to the Christian Scriptures from a misinterpretation of 2 Cor. 3 : 14, in the post-apostolic era. Tertullian (200-240 A. D.) called them instrumentum, "covenant," and sometimes testamentum, "will" or "testament." Eusebius (260-340 A. d.) used the same term, and Jerome (331-420 A. d.) used it in his Latin version of the Scriptures, called the Vulgate.

But the early Christians used the Greek term, commonly meaning " covenant." The first portion of the Christian Scriptures was called "The Gospel," or "The Gospel Instrument," and the latter portion "The Apostle," or "The Apostolic Instrument." It is clear that " covenant " is the proper and better word ; for the Jewish Scriptures are not the " Will " nor " Testament " of a dead Being, but contain the "covenant" of Jehovah, the living God ; and the Christian Scriptures contain the "New Covenant" through Jesus Christ, who was dead, but is risen and " is alive forevermore."

The word " Bible " comes from the Greek /3^Aof, "book," and fiifiliov, " little book." 3 By the early Christians the sacred writings were called simply " The Scriptures." * The Latin Christians used Biblia, " books " ; Jerome, however, used the term Bibliotheca Sancta, "holy books." Chrysostom (341-407 A. D.) called them ptfiMa, "books," and also ra 6cla pi(3Ma., " divine books." Chaucer speaks of them as " The Bible," and Wyckliffe used the same term in the Preface to his translation. The plural meaning, " the books," has disappeared ; the sacred Scriptures are now called " The Bible."

How Wkitten. — In seeking to know how the Christian Scriptures came to be written in an age and in a state of society such as existed in the apostolic era in Oriental lands, we must remember that there was no printing press, no public school system, that education was limited, that many could not read, that little was written, and that literature was very scanty. News spread by word of mouth; great events and great truths were alike proclaimed orally.

The earliest gospel was an oral gospel. Probably the first written Christian Scriptures were letters by apostles, apostolic men, and evangelists. Paul wrote two letters to the Thessaionians, but does not refer to any written gospel. James in his letter, written perhaps earliest of the Christian Scriptures, refers to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, 1 but makes no clear allusion to any written gospel. If there had been one then current, it is likely that he would have quoted or referred to it. The writer of 2 Pet. 3 : 16 places Paul's letters in a class with the Jewish Scriptures, for he says that in Paul's Epistles " are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unsteadfast wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction."

Therefore, from the facts and conditions as they existed in Palestine, it is obvious that for a time the apostles and their colaborers were too busy proclaiming the gospel to think of writing it. Nor did their Christian followers feel the need of a written gospel so long as they could frequently hear an apostle or an evangelist proclaim it.

Jewish Christians in Palestine would expect the gospel, if written, to be in Aramaic, Hebrew, or Syriac. Gentile Christians outside of Palestine would look for it in Greek. Paul spoke Aramaic or Hebrew to the mob in Jerusalem, but he also spoke Greek to the captain, and to that officer's amazement, who took him to be an Egyptian brigand. Paul's letters to Christians in Asia, Macedonia, and Corinth would naturally be written in Greek, so probably would the general letter of James.

Some scholars suppose there was no written gospel before 53 A. d. Perhaps the earliest portions written were " discourses " and " parables" of Jesus loosely connected by some account of his miracles. If these were written in Palestine, they would naturally be in the Aramaic language. This may well have been done by Matthew, followed by Mark, as tradition says, or perhaps the two wrote at about the same time. 2 Mark would report the gospel as proclaimed by Peter and Barnabas. After several such " Logia" discourses, and " stories " or " memoirs " were put forth, Luke thought it good " to write ... in

1 See Gregory, Canon and Text of the New Testament, p. 49.

INTRODUCTION.

order of all things accurately from the first " (Luke 1:3); and then he composed the third Gospel and the Acts.

How They Became One Book.— The several treatises of the Christian Scriptures, now named the " New Testament," have a clear unity of purpose, of subject, and a oneness of spiritual teaching, causing them to be brought together into one book for Christian use. 1 Precisely when this was done we are not definitely informed.

It is the prevailing view of scholars that the letters of James and of Paul to the Thessalonians were the earliest written of the books in our Christian Scriptures. Meager allusions to early collections of Christian writings show that they came to be one book by a comparatively slow process. Apparently certain " apostolic letters " were early grouped together and designated "Apostolicon," or "The Apostle." The latter sometimes appear to have included the general Epistles, and possibly the Apocalypse or Revelation. The Gospels formed another group and the Acts a third. Before the close of the third century all the books of our Christian Scriptures were grouped together and universally accepted. This was not an act of a general council of churches. The Council of Nicsea (325 A. D. ) and the Council of Laodicsea (about 360 A. D.) declared what books were already included among accepted Christian Scriptures. They did not select the books; they only declared what books were universally accepted by Christians as of divine authority.

Order of the Books. — The exact order in which the books composing the Christian Scriptures were written is not certainly known, but they were all written within a period of about half a century. The early Fathers do not agree upon the dates of the compositions of the Gospels even. Theophylact places the writing of Matthew at 41 A. D., Eusebius at 44 A. d., Nicephorus at 48 A. D., and Irenaeus after 60 A. D. A similar diversity prevailed in respect to the arrangement of the order of the books in the Christian Scriptures. A prominent arrangement which differs from that in our English Bibles is: the four Gospels and the Acts, followed by the General Epistles (James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2, 3 John, and Jude) ; then the Epistles of Paul (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians), followed by Hebrews, and then 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and lastly the Book of Revelation. Substantially this order prevails in the Greek Church. The order given in our English Bibles is not chronological, but is supposed to be logical. Some scholars suppose the logical was allowed to displace the chronological order by Providence, and hence, in their view, that the arrangement of the books in our English version has a certain divine sanction. 2 Nor has the

1 See MacPhail's Magnetism of the Bible, pp. 68-70, and Prof. Huntington's Charms of the Old Book, chap. xvii.

2 See A. T. Pierson, Bible and Spiritual Life, p. 15.

INTRODUCTION.

order of the four Gospels in our English versions always been followed. The Latins sometimes placed Matthew and John before Luke and Mark. Sometimes, though more rarely, after the Latin tradition, the order is John, Matthew, Luke, Mark, and in Greek copies. 1

When the Books Were Written. — Only approximate dates can be given. On some of these dates scholars are still widely at variance, therefore many of the dates are conjectural.

WHERE

WHERE

BOOK.

WRITTEN.

DATE.

BOOK.

WRITTEN.

DATE.

James,

Jerusalem (?)

Mark,

(?) circa 55

1 Thessalonians,

Corinth,

49-53 "

Matthew,

Judaea,

" 55

52-53 "

Luke,

Rome (?),

59-61

Galatians,

Ephesus,

53-56 "

Acts,

63-65

1 Corinthians,

56 "

1 Timothy,

Macedonia,

63(?)

Macedonia,

56-57 "

Rome,

63-67

Romans,

Corinth,

56-57 "

Titus,

63-65

Philippians,

Rome,

59-63 "

Jude,

Jerusalem (?)

68-70

Ephesians,

59-63 "

John,

Ephesus,

80-95

Colossians,

59-63 "

1, 2, and 3 John

Philemon,

59-63 "

Revelation,

Patmos,

95(?)

Hebrews,

48-65 "

How Preserved. — The Christian Scriptures were preserved in written copies from apostolic times. Internal testimony is not wanting to show that some of the apostolic letters were copied and circulated for the instruction of Christians, and were called "Apostolicon," as stated above. The "discourses," " Logia," and "Gospels" were copied in portions, and later entire, to be read in Christian assemblies. 2 These were preserved in three ways :

1. By scribes and copyists who multiplied written copies. Bookscribes and book-vendors were comparatively numerous, and so were trained copyists, who were employed to make copies of books that were in demand. Any work could be readily obtained by one willing and able to pay the cost of copying.

2. By translations into other languages from the Greek. Some copies of these have been preserved to our time.

3. By quotations in Christian writings of the first three or four centuries. So numerous and full are these Scripture citations that an English scholar declared he could reproduce the whole of the New Testament, were it destroyed, from the writings of the early Christian Fathers. He did actually gather the greatest portion of it in this way, and was sure that further research would discover the rest.

The Originals. — What has become of the original copies of the books of the Christian Scriptures written by the apostles, and evangelists, and apostolic men ? They have been worn out or lost, as have the

1 See Gregory, Canon and Text of the New Testament, p. 468.

2 See Rice, Our Sixty-six Sacred Books, chap. vi.

original copies of the ancient classics. The autograph copies might have been lost in a number of ways :

1. By Use. — If written on x^P TJ K } paper made from papyrus, as most of them doubtless were, they would soon wear out by handling and use.

2. Destroyed by Enemies. — In the many persecutions of the early Christians great efforts were made to destroy the Christians and their books. Any original copy of the Christian Scriptures would be hunted out by persecutors and burned or otherwise destroyed.

3. They May Have Been Lost. — The original copies would be exposed to the ravages of war, fire, moths, and mice. The large libraries of Alexandria, which doubtless contained Greek copies of the Hebrew Scriptures and of other books, were burned. The early Christian Fathers who had an original copy of any New Testament book would hide it from enemies, and the place where it was hidden would be perhaps forgotten and lost by the sudden martyrdom of its possessor.

Scripture Writings Better Preserved Than Classics. — All the famous Greek and Latin classic books, excepting possibly those of Pliny the Younger, Juvenal, Suetonius, Quintilian, Plutarch, and Tacitus, were written, read, and admired before the Christian writings appeared. The great classic writers had won the admiration of the world by their wisdom when the Christian Scriptures were sent forth. Classic and sacred writings were alike preserved, before the invention of printing, by hand-written copies. The paper chiefly in use in the Christian era was made from papyrus. Parchment, made from the skins of animals, more endurable, was rare and valuable. 1 So Paul admonished Timothy to bring the parchments because they were costly. Among the Greeks and Romans the labor of transcribing their books was done by slaves, but sometimes by virgins, skilled in the art of writing. Yet we have no complete copy of Homer himself prior to the thirteenth century. There are fragments of it belonging to the fourth and sixth century, and a few fragments ascribed to the first and second century B. c. The noted copy of Virgil in Florence is not complete, but there are two copies in the Vatican of perhaps the fourth century of our era. There is a fragment of Euripides perhaps as old as the first century b. c, but no complete copy. An old parchment copy of De Republica by Cicero of the second or third century has Augustine's comments on the Psalms. A partial copy of Virgil at Verona has a comment on the book of Job written over it. In an old volume of manuscripts in the British Museum is a palimpsest of four thousand lines of Homer's Iliad, and in the same, written by a different hand, yet quite as old as the portion of Homer, is a large portion of the Gospel of Luke. Parchments were costly and reused.

Christian Scriptures were, in like manner, multiplied by written » See 2 Tim. 4 : 13.

copies. Norton computed that not less than sixty thousand copies of the Gospels were circulated among Christians by the end of the second century. Origen was aided in multiplying copies of Christian books by virgins skilled in caligraphy. Eusebius was ordered to make fifty copies of the Scriptures by Constantine.

Besides the Sinaitic copy of the complete New Testament, there is the Vatican copy, nearly complete, of about the same age, and more than a score of copies of great portions of the New Testament made in the fifth and sixth centuries. " Manuscripts of the most illustrious classic poets and philosophers," says Scrivener, " are far rarer and comparatively modern. . . . More than one work [classic] of high and deserved repute has been preserved to our times only in a single copy."

The early Christians made copies of their sacred books with painstaking care, and yet little errors might creep into them. Where two sentences close together ended in the same words, the copyist's eye might fall on the words at the end of the second sentence and lead him to suppose he had already copied it, and pass on to the next, when he had copied the first sentence only. Thus the second sentence might be omitted altogether. But in comparing several early copies such errors would be detected. This work of comparing or collating ancient manuscript copies of valuable works has become a special study in recent years, and as a result of it, more accurately printed copies of the Greek text of the New Testament books have been issued.

The Text. — The three sources of the text of the New Testament, as already intimated, are — I. The written copies in Greek, or the manuscripts. II. The early translations. III. Quotations from the text in the Fathers and early Christian writers.

I. The Greek Manuscripts. — The most important Greek manuscripts of the New Testament now known are those written in large letters, and called uncials. Tischendorf asserts, " In all classical literature there is nothing which may be compared, even distantly, in riches with the textual sources of the New Testament." Westcott and Hort declare, " In the variety and fullness of the evidence on which it rests, the text of the New Testament stands absolutely and unapproachably alone among ancient prose writings."

The number of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament is variously computed by scholars, owing to the different methods of computation. Some reckon each manuscript, though only a fragment, as one ; others count all fragments now separated, but which they suppose to have been originally together, as only one. The total number is usually reckoned to be between 3000 and 4000 ; and new copies or fragments have been discovered in greater numbers in recent years than for a century following the Reformation. Westcott and Hort ' state that the

1 New Testament, vol. ii., p. 75 ff.

Gospels are contained in fair completeness in 19 uncials; the Acts in 9 ; Catholic Epistles in 7 ; Pauline in 9, and 2 transcripts ; the Apocalypse in 5. But these figures do not include a number of manuscripts containing more or less considerable fragments of books. " If each manuscript is counted as one, irrespectively of the books contained, the total number is between 900 and 1000." Other trustworthy computations of the known manuscripts of the New Testament place the whole number of uncials at 110, and of cursives at over 3500.

These cursive manuscripts, or minuscules (" small letters"), are written in a small running hand, richly illuminated. About 30 are known to contain the New Testament entire, 600 the Gospels, 300 the Pauline Epistles, 200 the Catholic Epistles, 100 the book of Revelation, and 350 lessons from the Gospels. The value of these cursive manuscripts in giving information on the history of the text has only recently been recognized. They are not only numerous, but of wide range and important in testimony.

Ancient Greek manuscripts have been arranged in groups based on their supposed texts, as : Pre-Syrian, Western, Alexandrian, and Neutral. The texts are also classed as original, rewrought, and polished texts. When these groups agree in their readings there is strong presumption that it is the true text.

The chief or large letter Greek manuscripts are :

J$. The Sinaitic, found by Tischendorf in 1859 in the Convent of St. Catharine, Mount Sinai. It is now in St. Petersburg, Russia. It consists of 346? leaves of thin vellum, 13J inches long by 14i inches wide. On 199 leaves are portions of the Greek version of the Old Testament. The 43 leaves found in 1844, and published under the title Codex Friderico-Augustanus, are also a part of the Sinaitic manuscript, and contain parts of the Old Testament. The remaining 147 % leaves have the whole of the New Testament, the so-called Epistle of Barnabas, and a part of the Shepherd of Hermas. Words are not always written out in full, but are often abbreviated by a line over the letters, though the abbreviations are less frequent than in some other old manuscripts. The words are written without spaces between them, making

tdth ceyceseF^c M ycth fi o Nsoce

to T7)Q evae^etac | uvarnpiov [6e late corr.] of e. 1 Tim. 3 : 16.

SPECIMEN OF THE SINAITIC MANUSCRIPT.

a line look like one continuous word, and the line sometimes ends with the next to the last letter of a word, the last letter beginning the next line; this makes it more difficult to read. Since the copy was first made, probably in the fourth century, other copyists have inserted corrections, which can be distinguished from the first writer's copy by the different handwriting and the different inks. The text of this manuscript has been published in four volumes, in imitation type, and the New Testament portion in an octavo edition in ordinary Greek type.

A. The Alexandrian Manuscript, in the British Museum, is now bound in four volumes. It consists of 773 leaves, 12f inches high by 10Jinches broad, each page having two columns of fifty lines each. The

£ V^JNApK'tlHNOAqrOCKAfOAorecH

Ev apxv f]v o Xoyog Kat o Xoyoc tj [v\ \ npoc tov 6[eo]v nai d[eo] f tjv o loyoc

John 1 : 1.

SPECIMEN OF THE ALEXANDRIAN MANUSCRIPT.

Old Testament is on 629 leaves. Matthew 1 to 25 : 26 is wanting ; two leaves are lost from John's Gospel, and three from 2 Corinthians. Following the New Testament books are a copy of the First Epistle of Clement of Eome (of which another copy was discovered by Bryennios at Constantinople, in 1875), and part of a second epistle of his of doubtful authenticity. This manuscript has initial letters and the first four lines of each column on the first page of Genesis in vermilion ink. It was originally written about the middle of the fifth century.

B. The Vatican Manuscript, No. 1209, in the Vatican Library at Eome is probably older than the Sinaitic, and was written in the fourth

AT orA 7 :

SPECIMEN OF THE VATICAN MANUSCRIPT, 1209.

century. It is a quarto vellum volume of 759 leaves (142 containing the New Testament), 10 by 10| inches, and having three columns of forty -two lines each to a page. The first part of Genesis to chapter 46 : 28 is wanting, and also the last part of the New Testament, after Heb. 9 : 14, that is, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon and Kevelation are missing in the original, and have been added in a comparatively recent handwriting. It has been issued in six volumes by Vercellone, Cozza and Sergio (vol. vi. to contain the notes, etc.).

There are other Vatican manuscripts : No. 2066 of Revelation, and No. 354 of the Gospels ; the latter a folio of 234 leaves in oblong uncials or capitals; also containing an Epistle of Carpianus and the Eusebian Canons.

C. The JSphraem Manuscript, in the National Library of Paris. This is a palimpsest, that is, the original writing was partially erased and some Greek works of Ephraem, the Syrian father (299-378 A.D.), were written over it. This has portions of the Greek version of the Old Testament on 64 leaves, and of the New Testament on 145 leaves. It has all of the Gospels except about 37 chapters. About 15 chapters of Acts, 45 of the Epistles and 11 of the Apocalypse are also missing. It has been worked over by three correctors between the sixth and tenth centuries.

D. The Greco-Latin Manuscript of Beza, in the Cambridge Library, England, is a quarto volume 10 by 8 inches, one column on a page, the Greek text on the left hand page and the Latin version on the right hand, being parallel. It contains the Gospels and Acts, but is marred by eight or nine correctors, and is not regarded of great value in textual study.

There is a large number of uncial manuscripts of less importance than these just described ; one of the latest discovered is

2. Codex Rossanensis, a purple vellum, containing Matthew and Mark, beautifully written in silver letters, the first three lines at the beginning of each Gospel being in gold. It is also illustrated with eighteen water-color pictures representing scenes in the gospel history. It is

7TOKlHPOYOT>

coyecTiNHB^ cixetAiaivuv

3^eicToycxi^

NACXKtHKl

Doxology to the Lord's Prayer. Matt. 6 : 13.

SPECIMEN OF THE CODEX ROSSANENSIS.

supposed to belong to the sixth century, and contains the doxology to the Lord's Prayer, Matt. 6 : 13, which is not found in the Sinaitic, the Vatican or the Beza manuscript.

Manuscripts Unknown. — Other valuable ancient manuscripts, containing portions of the text of the Christian Scriptures, are being brought to light by the diligent research of explorers and skilled palaeographers. These were hidden or lost during periods of persecutions in the early church. They are found in caves, tombs, crypts under churches, and in old convents in the East. It is not improbable that some portions of Scriptures, written by the apostles or their immediate disciples, may yet be found.

Printed Copies. — Different printed editions of the Greek New Testament have been made. Upwards of nine hundred and twenty, more or less critical, have been noted ; of which it is estimated that a million of copies have been issued. The careful collating of the best manuscripts of early translations and of quotations of the Christian Fathers will gradually put us in possession of a purer text.

II. Early Translations. — Early translations from the Greek of the Christian Scriptures are a second source of fixing the original text. Some of these translations are from a text older than any Greek text now extant. The chief of these translations are :

1. Syriac Versions. — The chief of these are : (a) The Old Syriac or Peshitta, represented in the Curetorian MS. of 82£ leaves, and in the Lewis-Gibson MS., found at Mt. Sinai in 1892. (6) The Jerusalem, or Palestinian form of the Syrian text. This is counted "rougher, and less scientific than the Peshitta." (c) A twin Syrian text, called the Philoxenian, and its twin, called the "Nine Mile," or Heraclean text. These are named after Philoxenus, a bishop (488-518 A. D.), and Thomas of Heraclea, a Syrian bishop (616 A. D.).

2. Latin Versions. — Of these we have : [a) The Old Latin, formerly called Itala. Several manuscripts of this Old Latin Version have been found. They are designated (a), {e), (k), (m), (g), (c). This Old Latin was the basis of Jerome's Version, called, (6) The Latin Vulgate, or common Latin, which version he made by revising the Old Latin with the aid of Greek manuscript texts. Jerome's translation was, at first, violently opposed, but finally was accepted ; and was the first book printed after the invention of movable type about 1 455, and called the "Mazarin Bible."

3. Coptic (or Old Egyptian) Version. — This version exists in three dialects : (a) the Thebaic or Saidic, of upper Egypt ; (b) the Memphitic or Boheiric, of lower Egypt; (c) the Fayyumic, which is also called by different names — as, Bashmuric, Elearchic, and Middle Egyptian.

4. Ethiopic Version. — This represents an early Greek text of an uncertain period, and exists in manuscripts brought from Mt. Lebanon to Rome about three and a half centuries ago.

5. Armenian Version. — This belongs to the fifth century, and has the entire Bible. Before that the Armenians used the Syriac Version,

6. Gothic Version was made by Wulfila or Ulphilas, bishop of the Goths (311-380 A. d.). His version arranges the Gospels thus: Matthew, John, Luke, Mark.