vent of St. Mary Deipara in the Nitrian Desert.
In the early part of the eleventh century an Arabic
scholar made a version of Tatian’s Diatessaron,
that early Syriac Harmony of the Gospels which
helped the Christian Church to realize the main
facts concerning our Saviour. A version of the
Psalms was prepared in the middle of the same
century for use in the Church services of the papal
or Melchite Greeks. This was translated from
the Greek Psalter, and, from the place where it was
first printed, became known afterwards as the
Aleppo Psalter. 1 It remains an interesting ques
tion whether Al-Ghazali in his travels, or while still
in Khorasan, ever examined the New Testament.
We are told that the Jews translated their law into Persian by 827 A. D. It is, therefore, hard to acquit the Christians of Persia of negligence. Their bishops found time to write learned treatises in Persian and Arabic, and even to translate Aris totle, but not to give Moslems the Scriptures. Yet Al-Kindi and others like him, many of whose names and writings are lost, were not afraid to give their testimony even at the court of the Caliphs. " The Church," says W. T. Whiteley, 2 " had not failed to exercise an influence on Islam around it, while Christians might not, on peril of death, seek
See article on "The Arabic Bible" in The Moslem World, October, 1916.
2 " Missionary Achievement: " A survey of world-wide Evangelization, I/mdon, 1907, pp. 22, 26.
