Hugo in the thirteenth century. The celebrated Septuagint version of the Old Testament was begun in the year 285 before Christ. The Latin Vulgate version, which is approved by the Church, dates from the year 405. Now, before the date of printing, the cost of copying the canon of Scripture on parchment was no inconsiderable sum. It is estimated that the thirty-five thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven verses which it contains would make twelve thousand seven hundred and eighty-three folios. This would fill four hundred and twenty-seven skins of parchment on both sides. The parchment alone would cost about four hundred dollars, while the copying would result in an expense of six hundred dollars, making the complete Bible cost at least one thousand dollars. This great expense would prevent the universal dissemination of the Scriptures as at the present day. In spite, however, of all this expense, the sacred word was carefully copied and in constant use. Perhaps we may say it was more reverenced and better understood than even at this day. Merryweather observes: "The Bible, it is true, was an expensive book, but it can scarcely be regarded as a rare one; the monastery was indeed poor that had it not, and, when once obtained, the monks took care to speedily transcribe it. Sometimes they possessed only detached portions, but when this was the case, they generally borrowed of some neighboring and more fortunate monastery the missing parts to transcribe, and so complete their own copies." * Kings and nobles offered the Bible as an appropriate and generous gift, and bishops were deemed benefactors to their Church by adding it to the library. We need only refer to the works of Griesbach, Bentley, Michaelis, Mill, Simon, Kennicott, Wetstein, Blanchini, and Scholz, on the numerous manuscripts of the Sacred Scripture. The collections of the Bible in the Vatican, Ambrosian, and Magliabecchian libraries in Italy, and those which France possesses in the Mazarin, St. Geneviève, and Royal libraries of Paris, bear witness to the wonderful zeal and toil displayed in copying, circulating, and interpreting the sacred word. To these collections, so celebrated, are to be added those of Venice, Vienna, Stuttgart, Göttingen, as well as the Bodleian and British Museum. Nor were these copies of the Scriptures wholly in the Latin Vulgate. "In 807 Charlemagne caused the whole Bible to be translated into French; in 820 Otfrid, a Benedictine monk, composed in the same language a harmony of the Four Gospels; in the same century a version of * Merryweather's "Bibliomania in the Middle Ages," p. 24. the Psalms in French was made by the order of Louis le Débonnaire; in the twelfth century translations of the Four Gospels, the Epistles of St. Paul, the Psalms, the Book of Job, and some other portions of the Bible were made in the diocese of Metz; in the fourteenth century Jean de Vignay translated the Epistles and Gospels in the Missal at the request of the Queen of France. By command of Charles V. a French version of a portion of the Bible was made, a copy of which is preserved among the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum. "In the Bibliothèque du Roi at Paris are several old French versions; of the twelfth century three copies of the Psalms, and of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries nearly sixty different versions, comprising translations of the entire Bible and of different books. Among the Cotton MSS. in the British Museum we find a copy of the Gospels in French verse, and a harmony of the Gospels which belonged to Canute; and among the Harleian MSS. in the same collection are two copies of a French translation of a portion of the Bible, from Genesis to the end of the Psalms, and five French versions of the Psalms, two of which are accompanied by English translations. "Versions in Anglo-Saxon were made by various hands. King Alfred is said to have translated the whole Bible. Aldhelm translated the Psalms; Elfric rendered the first seven books of the Old Testament and part of Job; and Beda translated the whole Bible, having completed his task but a few moments before he expired."* Buckingham, in his account of the Bible in the middle ages, gives notice of the translation of the Scriptures into sixteen modern languages, all made between the fourth and the fifteenth century, and these must have been made for the use of the laity, since the Scriptures were invariably read by the clergy in the Latin tongue, then the universal language of learned Christendom. After the invention of printing in 1438 the editions of the inspired writings became very numerous. Hallam proves that the Bible was the first book printed, and it was soon published in nearly every language. The learned Protestant bibliographer, Dibdin, says: "From the year 1462 to the end of the fifteenth century the editions of the Latin Bible may be considered literally innumerable, and, generally speaking, only repetitions of the same text." He enumerates the following editions: at Mentz in 1455; at Bamberg, 1461; at Rome, 1471; Venice, 1476; Naples, 1476; in Bohemia, 1488; in Poland, 1563; in Iceland, 1551; in Russia, 1581; in France, 1475; in Holland, 1477; * Buckingham, "Bible in the Middle Ages," pp. 40-44. Dibdin's "Library Companion," p. 15. in England, 1535; in Spain, 1477. Celebrated editions appeared at Bologna in 1482; at Soncino in 1488; at Brescia in 1494; and at Bamberg in 1518. The edition of Brescia is the one which Luther is said to have used. Cardinal Ximenes undertook the expensive and unprecedented task of printing a polyglot. This work was begun in 1504 and terminated in 1517. This polyglot contains an independent Hebrew text, which became the basis of several other editions, as also the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and a Chaldee paraphrase. The New Testament contains the Greek text and the Latin Vulgate. This great work was dedicated to Pope Leo X. and is in six folio volumes. The Antwerp Polyglot appeared in 1569, in eight volumes folio, at the expense of Philip II. of Spain. The Parisian Polyglot, in seven languages, appeared in 1645. As to the translations into the modern languages to which we have already referred, it may be well to resume here that, after the invention of printing, nearly every country in Europe soon possessed an edition in its vernacular. In Germany the first printed Bible extant is that of Nuremberg, in 1447, and a second appeared in 1466. The edition of 1466 was so frequently and rapidly reprinted that, prior to the publication of Luther's Bible, it had been issued no fewer than sixteen times, |