iii. Three Arm. writers of the 5th cent., Koriun, Lazar of Pharpi, and Moses of Chorene, record that the Scriptures were translated between A.D. 396 and 430 by Mesrop, the elaborator of the Arm. alphabet, Sahak the Patriarch, Eznik, and others. According to Koriun (p. 10 of Ajin. edition of Venice, 1833), Mesrop, with the help of a Gr. scribe Rufinus, began a version in Edessa about 397 A.D., commencing with the Proverbsof Solomon. The context implies that they used a Gr. copy ; and they may have taken the second half of a Bible, complete in two volumes, of which the second began with Proverbs. There can be no other reason why they began there. Later on Koriun and Eznik fetched back from Constantinople an accurate and sure copy of the Scriptures, and the work of trans- lation already begun by Sahak was resumed.
Moses of Chorene says that Sahak's inchoate version was from the Syr., because the Pers. king Meroujah had burned, thirty years before, all the Gr. books of the Armenians. Lazar, however, who is more credible, declares that Sahak's version of the Old and New Testaments was made from Gr. Lastly, Moses (iii. 60) declares that Sahak and Mesrop, not content with their Byzantine ' exact ' copies, sent himself to Alexandria for the purpose of completing their work in ways not clearly speci- fied. Moses also states that two of the translators, John and Artzan, on their way to Constantinople, stayed in CiEsarea (? of Cappadocia). The ac- counts of these writers then add little to our know- ledge. We may only gather that texts from Edessa, Byzantium, and Alexandria were used by the translators. The translation itself was no doubt made in the basin of Ararat, where lay the earliest centres of Arm. Christianity, Valarshapat, with its convent of Edschmiatzin, and Twin.
iv. The books of the OT in Arm. MSS follow the order given in Tischendorfs LXX (Lipsise, 1880) as far as 1 ajid 2 Es (except that 2 Es in Arm. = the Gr. Ezra) ; then follow : Neh (called in th«
'E.g. in Ex 33* the Arm. = ' And the congregation having hear<l that e^il word, lamented lamenting" and" the man did not lake the ornament on his person.' If the Syr. Hexaplaric version of Paul of Tela had not been made nearly 200 yean* after the Arm., the latter might almost have been regarded as ■ trannlation of it.
AKMENIAif VEKSION
ARMENIAN VERSION
153
lower marj^in 3 Es), Est, Jth, To, 1 to 3 Mac, Ps, I'r, Kc, Ca, \Vu, Job, Is, the XII Truiiliets, Jer, Bar, La, Death of Jer, Dn, Ezk, Death of Ezk. In some codiees Job follows 3 Mac and precedes Psalms. Various Apocr. books also appear in the MSS, Wz. : The Testaments of the XII I'atriarclis, the History of Joseph and his wife Asenath, and the Hymn of Asenath. All tliese are given in Lord Zouche's Bible after Gn and before Ex nnier the general title of ' Book of Parali- pomeca,' as if they were esteemed part of the same. In other XiSS the Testaments succeed Dt. These are not given in printed editions of the Arm. Bible, nor are they found in all codices. The same is true of the apocr. entitled ' the Death of the Twelve Prophets,' and ' the Prayer of Mana.sses.' The Third Book of Ezra or Esdras, usually known as the Fourth, follows Nehemiah in the MSS which contain it, e.g. in the MS Bible of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Each book of OT is prefaced by a brief introduc- tion of unknown authorship, but coeval with the version ; and also by a summary of contents. Besides the usual preface to the Ps, some MSS introduce a passage of David the Philosopher, another of Athana.siuB, and a third of Epiphanius of Cyprus. Dn is translated from the text of Theodotion. Sir was twice translated, first of all in the 5th century, and again, perhaps, in the 8th. The former version is printed in the Venice Bible of I860, and is the more complete and accurate though it does not comprise the whole of the Gr. text, ch. 8, for example, being omitted : the latter was printed in Zohrab's Bible, Venice, 1805. Uscan made and published in his Bible a third ver- sion in the year 1666. V. C. CoNYBEARE.
ARMENIAN VERSION OF NT The old Ar- menian wTiters (mentioned in § iii. ARMENIAN Version of UT) give us no special information in regard to the <iate and circumstances of their version of NT. Whatever statements they make apply to it as to OT. Co<lices of the four Gospels of great age are relatively common, written in large unciiUB for church use.* Codices of the rest of NT separBle from the Gospels are rare, and will generally be found to have formed part of a larger MS containing the entire NT. They are not common at all before the 13th cent., before which epoch also codices of the entire Bible are very rare. The OT is never found ai)art from the New, and the extreme rarity of unci.al OT fragments in the bindings of later MSS suggests that the entire Arm. Bible was never written out from beginning to end except in a small hand, though there were, of course, uncial lectionaries for church use, and the Biblioth6que Nationale contains such a lectionary written prob- ably in the 9th cent. In Edsclimiatzin there is an entire Bible on parchraentof 1151, and two more on paiier of 1253 and 1270. In Venice, one of 1220. The London Bible Society has a choice copy of about 1600, Lord Zoucho another not so old.