by Ephraim and still more by Aphraates: but at present there are no means of supplying the lack of Old Syriac MSS to any appreciable extent from patristic quotations. Of the Old Syriac Acts and Epistles nothing as yet is known. The four minor Catholic Epistles and the Apocalypse, not being included in the Canon of the Syrian Churches, form no part of the true Syriac Vulgate, but are extant in supplementary versions. None of the editions of the Syriac Vulgate come up to the requirements of criticism: but considerable accessions to the evidence for the Greek text are hardly to be looked for from this source.
119. A second version, closely literal in its renderings, was made by Polycarpus for Philoxenus of Mabug in 508. Little is known of it in this its original condition. We possess a revision of it made by Thomas of Harkel in 616, containing all the New Testament except the Apocalypse. The margin contains various readings taken from Greek MSS, which must either have been ancient or have had ancient texts. A third version, written in a peculiar dialect, is found almost exclusively in Gospel Lesson-books, and is commonly called the Jerusalem Syriac. The text is of ancient character: but there is no other evidence to shew when the version was made. Besides one almost complete Lesson-book known for some time, a few considerable fragments have lately come to light. They include a few verses of the Acts. Various signs render it likely that both these versions were in some sense founded on one or other of the two forms of the Peshito. But the whole subject awaits fuller investigation.
120. The third great group of Versions is the EGYPTIAN. The Coptic or Egyptian versions proper are three, very unequally preserved. The Memphitic, the version of Lower Egypt, sometimes loosely designated as the Coptic, contains the whole New Testament, though it does not follow that all the books were translated at the same period, and the Apocalypse was apparently not treated as a canonical book. The greater part of the version cannot well be later than the second century. A very small number of the known MSS have been used in the existing editions, and that on no principle of selection. A cursory examination by Dr Lightfoot has recently shown much diversity of text among the MSS; and in Egypt, as elsewhere, corruption was doubtless progressive. The version of Upper