had disappeared seven years before in the sack of Pavia, but which, watched over by God's good providence, now turned up in a sausage-maker's shop, torn and disfigured but complete.

After receiving from Ambrogio his priceless manuscript of the New Testament, Widmanstadt went his way, and as he had opportunity, devoted himself to learned pursuits, especially to the study of the Oriental Tongues. His learning and abilities secured for him the patronage of eminent persons and great prelates, by whose favor he was able not only to advance his own interests, but also to prosecute his studies. In Spain and Italy he had influential friends, and through the archbishop of Capua he obtained an introduction to Pope Clement VII., in whose presence, in 1533, he was permitted to expound the Copernican System at the Vatican, and was presented by this Pope with tokens of especial regard. It now seemed as though, through the favor of Clement, he might be able to issue the Syriac Testament; but the death of the Pope in 1534 blasted all these hopes. Still he pursued the study of Arabic and Syriac, having for an instructor in Syriac, Simeon, a Maronite Bishop. In the library of Tolmei, at Sienna, he discovered a second manuscript of the Gospels in Syriac, which he copied and kept with that received from Teseo. After this, he entered the service of Pope Paul III. He then went to Sienna, and thence to Venice, then famed for its printers, seeking to find some one who could print the Syriac Testament. Failing in this, he returned to Germany, and was in the confidential employment of Otho, bishop of Augsburg. Subsequently he lived in retirement at Landshut, and afterward settled with his family in his native place, whence he was driven by war into the Austrian dominions, where he found protection and favor from Ferdinand King of Hungary and Duke of Austria, who soon became Emperor, and made him a Senator, and subsequently Chancellor of Austria. Through all these changes he still held fast to his purpose, and in 1533 he is found taking counsel with his old instructor Justus Jonas, and another friend, as to bringing the Syriac language and the Syriac Testament within the reach of European scholars; a work in which others were to coöperate, and for which aid was to come from another quarter.

II. THE SYRIANS OF KURDISTAN.

About the year 1530 another manuscript copy of the Syriac Testament reached Europe from an entirely different source. Fifty-seven miles south-east of Diarbekir, in Turkish Kurdistan, on the southern

declivity of mount Masius, a conical limestone hill so steep that the roofs of the lower tier of houses serve as a street for those above, stands the picturesque town of Mardin, 3,900 feet above the sea, overlooked by a strong castle upon the summit, and commanding a wide view over the Mesopotamian plain. The Arabian geographers pronounced this fortress impregnable. It was able to offer protracted resistance to the Mongolian conqueror, Hulagu, and afterwards to the armies of Timur, the Tartar, in 1395; and the castle, for hundreds of years was the residence of princes, more or less independent. In those old days, when men whose kingdom was "of this world,” and whose servants were therefore willing to fight, had assumed authority over the flock of God, and had established organizations in which politics was more potent than piety, and where faith,-instead of coming by hearing, and hearing by the word of God,-was settled by the decisions of councils and the decrees of despots; when Paul's question, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" had been largely superseded by Peter's question, "What shall this man do?" when men disputed about things which they did not understand, and persecuted people who chanced to know more or less than they did; there arose a bitter controversy concerning the Incarnation and its results; some holding that in the person of the Saviour were two distinct natures, one human, the other divine; others holding that the result of the incarnation was one unique nature, human and divine. This ancient town of Mardin, "a city set upon a hill that "cannot be hid," with its population of fifteen to eighteen thousand, is to-day the headquarters of a community of Syrian Christians, known to the outside world as Monophysites or believers in "one nature,” otherwise called by outsiders Jacobites; from the fact that in the days when the Emperor Justinian endeavored to establish orthodoxy and crush out heresy by persecutions and penalties, one Jacob Baradaeus, ordained it is said by men who were already imprisoned by imperial edict; poor, but energetic and determined beyond belief; disguised as a beggar, and furnished by one of his disciples, an Arab chief, with the fleetest of dromedaries, for thirty-three years, till 578, traversed the East as on the wings of the wind, defied imperial edicts, rallied his distressed and discouraged brethren, ordained clergy by thousands, and so provided a new set of guardians and defenders of the sacred Scriptures, who, in their separated worship, still preserved, and cherished the same Syriac Bible which was treasured by the orthodox Syrian church, and by all the different sects and branches thereof who used the Syrian tongue.

Of these Syrians some six hundred still reside in Mardin, which is the seat of their theological library, school, and other institutions. There are in the vicinity of Mardin some two thousand of them, and within a few days journey round about, they number not far from fifty-five thousand. They hold the doctrine of the one nature in Christ. Their learned men object to the title of Monophysites, which is appropriated to the doctrine of Eutyches, which they deny that they hold; they also discard the name Jacobites, applied to them by their enemies; but are properly known as Syrians and claim to be in the succession from the church planted at Antioch.

This people had been for ages possessors of the same Syriac Bible which the Maronites had preserved, and in which Widmanstadt was so deeply interested; and in former times the patriarchal monastery of Zaafrân, about four miles north of Mardin, was famed as having "the largest library to be found among the Syrians, having books in twelve different languages."

In the autumn of 1533, having attended his royal master at a meeting of German Princes in Heilbronn, while returning to Vienna, Widmanstadt unexpectedly met a Syrian priest, Moses of Mardin, who had come from Italy to find him.

Three or four years before, this Moses who was not a Maronite, but who came from Mardin in Mesopotamia, the seat of the Syrian patriarchs, and who described himself as A Disciple and Legate of Dionysius, patriarch of Antioch, sent to the Popes to abjure certain errors of the Monophysite heresy, and to seek protection, favor, and the means of printing the Syriac New Testament, came to Rome. He remained there some time, but received little encouragement or help. He went to Venice, attracted probably by the fame of Aldus and Bomberg, the eminent printers of that city, but met only failure, until he fell in with Guillaume Postel, a brilliant and erratic Frenchman, who had recently returned from the East, and brought with him from Damascus a manuscript of the Syriac New Testament for Bomberg. He had formerly known Ambrogio, who had taught him the elements of Syriac and other tongues, and had also known Widmanstadt; and he advised Moses of Mardin to go to Widmanstadt. To get there was not an easy matter; but about that time, in June 1553, on the death of Edward VI., Mary ascended the throne of England, and Pope Julius determined to send Cardinal Reginald Pole to remove the interdict from her kingdom. Moses obtained an introduction to Pole, perhaps through the Pope's commendation, and so in September, as Pole started on his journey, in the train of

the legate of the Roman Pontiff, went this messenger of the Syrian patriarch on his journey northward.

Their first recorded halting place was Augsburg. Thence they proceeded to Dillingen, and it was perhaps at this place that the Syrian priest met the German statesman; the two having a common object in view, which had been the hope of Widmanstadt for years, and which had sent Moses from Asia to Europe, and across the Alps from Italy to Germany.

Widmanstadt conducted Moses to Vienna; and presented him to Ferdinand, who at once consented to bear the expense of printing the Syriac Testament, paying Moses a salary to superintend the work; Widmanstadt rendering such assistance as his public duties permitted. The artist, Caspar Crapht, engraved in steel the punches for striking the matrices, a beautiful font of type was cast in tin, and Michael Cymbermann (or Zimmerman) was the printer. The Gospels were struck off on May 18, 1555, the Pauline Epistles July 18, the Acts August 14, and the book was completed September 27; being the Editio Princeps of the entire Syriac New Testament, excepting the Apocalypse, II. Peter, II. and III. John, and Jude.

Thus from two distinct communities, in Lebanon and Mardin, came the manuscripts upon whose authority was given to the world. the first printed edition of the Syriac Testament. These religious bodies, separated in locality, in faith, and unity, having no communion, and very little in common with each other, yet held fast this faithful Word as the anchor of their hope, the lamp of their feet, and the light of their path.

The work being done, and a thousand copies printed, Moses received 200 of them, that they might be placed in the Syrian Churches; but for some reason he sold them in Europe, and thus measurably defeated the object of their issue. But the book at last. was printed, and came into the hands of scholars, and since then has never been lost sight of among the learned.

Fourteen years after the printing of the Syriac Testament by Widmanstadt, in 1555, the Christian Jew Tremellius, issued an edition of the Syriac New Testament in Hebrew characters, dedicated to Queen Elisabeth; while at the same time under the patronage of Queen Elisabeth's brother-in-law, Philip II. of Spain, a third edition of the Syriac New Testament, in the Syriac character, repeated in Hebrew letters at the bottom of the page, was issued as a part of the great Antwerp Polyglott, edited by Arius Montanus; who for thirteen years gave incredible toil to this work. Sixteen hundred dozen

skins were bought for the work, which was issued in eight splendid volumes, 1572-3; five hundred copies being printed, many of which were lost at sea! While the Duke of Alva was doing his terrible work in the Netherlands, the proof sheets of this book of peace and blessing were passing to and fro between Antwerp and Madrid; and to-day among the choice treasures of the British Museum, spotless in page and brilliant in ink as when it issued from Plantin's printing office, stands a copy of those splendid folios, presented by Arias Montanus in his master's name, to his terrible viceroy, as an eternal monument of Alva's piety, 'from the best of monarchs to the best of ministers.'" Other editions were issued, so that before the close of the year 1600, seven editions had appeared, including the one in the Antwerp Polyglott. Five more were added during the seventeenth century, two being the text contained in the Paris and the London Polyglotts. And when Schaaf published his edition, in 1709, he reckoned it as the thirteenth.

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The importance of this Syriac version of the Scriptures was speedily recognized; and sharp controversies arose concerning its age and origin. The book itself however, remained locked in the treasuries. of the learned, few being able to examine it, and the great bulk of Christian people being deprived of the opportunity of using it. But though a century passed away during which no great progress was made in Syrian studies and researches, yet the Syriac Testament was not forgotten, and circumstances occurred which brought it more distinctly to the attention of the Christian public. Among these may be mentioned the researches of Dr. Claudius Buchanan among another class of custodians of the Syriac Scriptures.

III. THE SYRIAN CHRISTIANS OF MALABAR.

Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History, (Bk. v. c. 10), in writing of the early evangelists, tells us of one "most distinguished for learning," and who was afterwards the first President of the Theological School at Alexandria, whose name was Pantænus, and who, in his evangelistic journeyings, about A. D. 190, traveled as far as the Indies, "And the report is that he there found his own arrival anticipated by some who there were acquainted with the Gospel of Matthew, to whom Bartholomew, one of the apostles, had preached, and left them the gospel of Matthew in the Hebrew, which was also preserved to this time."

At the Council of Nice, in A. D. 325, a Bishop named John signed the decrees as "Metropolitan of Persia and of Great India." For