This last is the famous Ostrog Bible, so called from the place at which it was printed, the first complete printed Bible in Slavonic. For this work, brought out under the auspices of Constantine, prince of Ostrog, various MSS of the Slavonic were used ; the Slavonic text was compared with the Greek, and sometimes with the Latin ; modern expressions were substituted for those which were obsolete, and therefore often unintelligible ; and errors were corrected. Another work—the Bible of Skorina, (Prague, 1517-1525)—emphasized the growing need of a translation into the ordinary language of the time, and a few years later Gregory’s version of the Gospels (1556-1561) marks the first definite beginning of a translation into Russian, as dis- tinguished from Old Slavonic. The printing-press was re-established at Moscow by Ivan the Terrible (1533-1584), but the prejudice against introducing corrections caused the perpetuation of the mistakes
found in the Slavonic MSS. At last the agitation for, at any rate, necessary reforms became powerful enough to be effectual. In this agitation the famous Nicon, who became patriarch of Russia in 1652, took a prominent part. Scholars were summoned to Moscow, and in 1653 Greek MSS were brought from Mt. Athos. This revision was the beginning of dissent in Russia, for many adhered to the use of the unrevised books. In face of the opposition, progress was slow, and it was not till 1674 that a revision of the Slavonic Bible according to the Greek text was ordered, and begun under the superintendence of Epiphanius Slavenetzki. In 1683 a translation of the Psalter into Russian by Pheersof appeared.
2. The age of Peter the Great marked an epoch in the history of the Bible, as in other things. He revised the alphabet, removing some letters and introducing the character with which the reader of modern Russian is familiar, but the Old Slavonic remained in use for ecclesiastical purposes. In 1712 a revision of the text was ordered by Peter the Great, but the printing of this revised edition wasdelayed by hisdeath. His successor, Catherine, continued the support given by her predecessor ; but it was not till Klizabeth’s reign that anything effective was done, owing to the persistent opposi- tion to the work of revision. In 1744 Elizabeth ordered the Synod to proceed with the work, and finally in 1751 appeared the so-called Bible of Elizabeth. With very few changes this is the Bible in ordinary use in Russia at the present time, the text of the second edition of Elizabeth’s Bible (1756) being the one adopted.
3. The reign of Alexander I. (1801-1825) marks the next event of importance in connexion with the Bible, viz. the establishment of the Russian Bible Society. This was in the first instance due to the energy of John Paterson, an agent of the British and Roreien Bible Society, and with the warm support of the emperor the first depdt of the Russian Bible Society was opened at St. Petersburg in 1813. In 1818 the first edition of the Gospels in Slavonic and Russian was printed, in 1822 an edition of the NT followed, and a beginning was made on the OT, a Psalter appearing in the same year. But the work of the Society was to- be shortlived. It met with opposition from rationalists on the one hand and conservative Bible students on the other, and fell into disfavour also with the emperor on the sug- gestion that there was about it somewhat of the nature of a secret political society. It 1824 the work of translation was discontinued, and the existing copies burnt; and two years later the Society was finally dissolved by the emperor Nicholas, after having during its short existence translated parts of the Bible into fourteen new languages, and circulated nearly a million copies of the Bible or some parts of it in twenty-six different languages or dialects.
4, But the demand for Russian Bibles continued to be keenly felt; and Philaret, the famous bishop of Moscow, made attempts, but without much suc- cess, to prosecute the work of translation. The first attempt to translate the OT from the Hebrew original into Russian was made by Pavski, pro- fessor of Hebrew at the Academy of St. Peters- burg; but this work was not for general use. Similar work was being done by Macarius, and his translation was submitted to the Holy Synod,
with a representation as to the urgent need of
completing the Russian translation. At last the Synod was moved to action, and in 1860 the translation of the Gospels appeared, followed, in 1862, by the Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypse. The first part of the OT to be published was the Penta. teuch in 1868, but the whole work was only com-
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pleted in 1875, nearly twenty years after the passing of the original resolution of the Synod in 1857. This was the first translation approved by the Czar and the Synod, and is in ordinary use. A translation of the OT made from the Hebrew into Russian by the British and Foreign Bible Society (London, 1875) was not allowed to circu- late, but the same Society was allowed to print the translation made by the Synod, and to circu- late it without the Apocrypha of the Greek and Latin Bibles translated by the Synod. Lirzrature.—This is for the most part in Russian. See Scrivener’s Introduction, ii. 157 ff.; art. by the present writer in the Church Quarterly Review, October 1895 [from which the